Wellness Wednesday

Taking a Stroll Can Lower Death Tolls

Walking at least once a week, regardless of whether or not it is above or below recommended standards, can lower mortality rates.

In today's constantly busy environment, people are finding more excuses than reasons to get exercise. The recommended weekly amount of exercise for adults is 150 minutes, or 75 minutes for vigorous activity. Despite the relatively low amounts of exercise recommended, only 42% of adults between the ages of 65-74 years-old, and 28% of adults 75 and older report achieving the recommended weekly amount of exercise. This lack of exercise (in conjunction with poor diet) has been a major factor in the obesity epidemic that we now face as a nation. A major factor that some people list as their reason for not exercising is viewing the recommended amount of exercises as unattainable, and therefore not worthwhile if the benefits cannot be achieved by even exercising under the weekly recommended amount. But what if exercising even a little bit, did in fact add some extra years onto your life?

Dr. Alpa Patel of The American Cancer Society conducted a study to see if exercising under the recommended amount held any benefits. To do this, Patel looked at data from 140,000 participants in the Cancer Prevention Study II Nutrition Cohort. Of these participants, she looked at 6-7% of the population that reported no moderate to vigorous activity as her baseline, and then compared that group to those who walked less than two hours per week and those who walked more than two hours per week. After comparison, she found that the group that walked less than two hours per week had a lower overall mortality rate than the group that did not exercise, while the group that met the 2.5-5 hour recommended amount of walking had a 20% overall reduced mortality risk, and those that met 6 or more hours had a 35% overall lower mortality rate. So the next time you think even a little bit of exercise doesn't help, it actually does. SO DO IT. :)