ScienceDaily: varied workouts cut death risk
- Harvard T.H. Chan School researchers reported that adults doing a wider mix of activities had lower death risk in two U.S. cohorts followed for decades. - The BMJ Medicine study tracked 111,467 people and found the highest exercise-variety group had 19% lower all-cause mortality than the lowest. - The cohorts ran from 1986 to 2020, adding evidence that workout variety may matter beyond weekly minutes alone. (bmj.com)
Exercise science usually counts minutes: how long you walk, run, lift, or cycle in a week. This study asked a different question: does doing different kinds of movement matter too? (bmj.com) (hsph.harvard.edu) Researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health analyzed two long-running U.S. cohorts: the Nurses’ Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study. They examined 70,725 women and 40,742 men who were free of major chronic disease at baseline. (bmj.com) (hsph.harvard.edu) Participants regularly reported activities including walking, jogging, running, bicycling, swimming, rowing or calisthenics, racket sports, weight training, yoga, gardening, outdoor work, and stair climbing. The surveys were updated every two years, starting in 1986. (bmj.com) (sciencedaily.com) The researchers then built a “variety” score based on how many different activities people kept doing over time. They compared that score with deaths from all causes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, respiratory disease, and other causes. (bmj.com) Over 2,431,318 person-years of follow-up, 38,847 participants died. Those in the highest exercise-variety group had a 19% lower risk of death from any cause than those in the lowest group, even after accounting for total activity levels. (bmj.com) (hsph.harvard.edu) The same pattern appeared across cause-specific deaths. The paper reported 13% to 41% lower mortality from cardiovascular disease, cancer, respiratory disease, and other causes in the highest-variety group. (bmj.com) The paper also looked at single activities one by one. Most were linked to lower mortality in higher amounts, but swimming was an exception in this analysis, with no clear reduction after adjustment. (bmj.com) That does not mean one activity is “bad” and another is “good.” The study was observational, so it can show associations, not prove that adding tennis or weights directly caused people to live longer. (bmj.com) (hsph.harvard.edu) The authors also flagged limits in the data. Exercise was self-reported, and the cohorts were made up mostly of white health professionals, which may limit how well the findings apply to the broader population. (hsph.harvard.edu) (bmj.com) The practical reading is narrower than the headlines: staying active still matters, but repeating one mode forever may miss some of the benefit seen in people who mixed walking, strength work, sports, and everyday movement over time. (sciencedaily.com) (hsph.harvard.edu)
