Study: Want to live longer? Move or die. The amount of exercise you get is more important than your age or even cancer diagnosis

the kenneth cooper data is old. but. he interpreted it to mean that both duration and vigorousness can undermine longevity. ie- too long and too hard. so it might be worth checking his conclusions as part of the rabbit hole. he had a lot of inf pass through his lab. and and is 93. outlived keith richards so far.

Has anyone on here taken a deep look at this? Did they account for the fact that correlation isn't the same as causation?

Stay in your lane.

so why aren't you running despite your pipe dream of breakin 3

When they mean move or die they don't mean abuse your body in the pursuit of greatness as a distance runner.

To the OP's comment about correlation vs. causation, that is a good point.

All I can venture is that for those that are not fit enough to be leading an active lifestyle, maybe this might serve as a catalyst to address their issues to the extent that they become active.

In that regard, even if it (moving/active lifestyle) is just a correlation rather than a causation, it may nonetheless indicate a real need to get to that point in which they are capable of moving more, and do it.

I mean, it's pretty simple metric for almost anybody to to grasp - are they able to move for an hour or day, for example. That's a lot simpler than starting to see how they measure up against a bunch of other health or mobility measures.

rojo is the type of person who clicks ads like "Top heart surgeon says stop eating this one food immediately"

What's your weekly mileage these days?

The article itself makes no claims whatsoever about causality. It is Hutchinson who jumps to the causal “move or die” conclusion. The study is about using physical activity as a predictor of mortality, nothing more and nothing less.

From the paper:

"these results add to the growing body of evidence supporting the use of signals derived from wearable accelerometry in predicting an individual’s current health status and risk of mortality beyond measures, which are collected in standard surveys."

The article might not say much about the difference between correlation and causation, but Hutchinson did call that out on twitter:

It can be pretty hard to exercise when you’re doing aggressive chemotherapy.

Newborns have the most longevity but the least movement; sedentary 20 year olds have more years to live than marathon-running 70 year olds. So, it is not true that how much and how vigorously you move are more important than how old you are. Also, a fair amount of this kind of claim would have to take into account that you already have to be in good shape to be able to move around a lot vigorously, so you're comparing a healthy pool to a pool that includes a bunch of people who cannot move around a lot. So, Hutch, be more careful in how you report these studies.

But I enjoyed every minute of it.

Variation is probably best. If you had the time and money you could do the following instead of say, running 5x a week

Easy run

Compound weight lifting

Bike ride

Threshold workout

Swim

I went through aggressive chemo for non Hodgkins lymphoma 4 years ago at age

73. I kept up my exercise routine, though it did not include running.

Mostly a lot of walking, light weight living, rowing machine, indoor biking.

i was lucky in that I never experienced any nausea.

Off to World's in March at 85, abusing my body as a long distance runner and cross country skate skier. Running is the best revenge against the slings and arrows of aging.

Did you even read the article? The study was over a group in the 50-80 age range that excludes the young as well as the very old. For that group, it’s quite plausible for the data to reveal exercise as a better predictor of remaining years than age.

One example: 105 year old woman in the UK. Credits movement for her long life.

'I don't like sitting in the chair too long,' she added. 'I like having some fresh air. I definitely enjoy my life because it's a nice life at the moment.

dailymail.co.uk

105 year old woman reveals two simple secrets to a long, healthy life

https://www.facebook.com/DailyMail

Daisy Taylor, who was born in 1919, in Leytonstone, East London and has 25 great grandchildren admits she 'never imagined' she'd live as long as she has

Open link

My father was never athletic. But in his late 40s, he got a gym membership and made a point of going 3-5 times a week to do very basic strength training. He used to live in Boston and made a point of walking up Comm Ave to the park every morning before work. He kept this up through his 60s and 70s and still does it in his 80s. He is 86 and never had any serious illnesses. He can still drive, travel and get around the house to do whatever chores need to be done.

I was skiing at Crested Butte and took the back country tour that they offer. The ski guide was an 82 year old woman who was once a pro ski racer and then life long ski instructor. She can still ski down anything on the mountain. She is on the mountain every day during the ski season and in the summer leads back country hiking groups.

Having seen a lot of family, friends, colleagues, etc. go through middle age to their senior years, it is very clear that those who are very active through middle age into their 60s and 70s do so much better than those who "slow down" and do not get any exercise. The kicker is that one thing that will put you in the grave as fast as cancer and heart disease is frailty. Frailty often sets in when people in their 70s and 80s have a fall and break a hip or hurt their back. They are so out of shape that they are incapable of recovering from the injury (and being out of shape is often the cause of the injury as they lack balance and coordination needed to avoid the fall). That then sets in motion a spiral of decline that cannot be stopped.

Of course. But I think we all understand the healthier someone is going into a major injury or severe illness late in life the more likely a successful outcome. When grandma breaks her hip that shouldn't be their death knell because it creates a permanent sedentary life due to lack of mobility prior to that. Maybe she'll be limited to 80% of what she once was, but that's totally acceptable.

Life if a sinking ship, we're all going under at some point. The question is how do we maintain our ability to bail ourselves out to keep the inevitable at bay?

Exercise, diet, relationships, they're all just ways we keep that bulge pump functioning as long as possible before our boat finally hits the bottom of the ocean.