Live Longer

Why do you run? Is it for the runner’s high? For feeling healthy? For maintaining a healthy weight? Do you do it for competition? For community?

How about this reason: running will add 16 years to your active life.

A study by Stanford University researchers in the Journal of the American Medical Association’s Archive of Internal Medicine tracked 538 older runners for 21 years. Major findings of this study:

• The first disability for runners occurred on average 16 years later than that of a control group.
• Not only does running delay cardiovascular mortality, it also delays deaths due to cancer, neurological disease, infections, and other causes
• Running does not increase rates of osteoarthritis.  Runners do not require more total knee replacements.

For further reading, see Running slows the aging clock, a news release from the Stanford School of Medicine.  For the study itself, see Reduced Disability and Mortality Among Aging Runners from the Archives of Internal Medicine, the Journal of the American Medicine Association.

And get back out on the road, the trail, the treadmill, your skis, or on your bike.

March 8, 2009 at 10:03 pm | Running, Walking