The amount of exercise is important in sports, but it is not the only one. Its variety is as essential as quantity, being associated with a lower risk of death.
According to , data from two group studies were used, the Nurses’ Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Studyto examine how different types and combinations of exercise relate to mortality risk over time.
In a new one, published in January in BMJ Medicineresearchers who followed more than 100 thousand people for more than 30 years, they have observed that the variety of physical activities practiced by a person can be as important as the total quantity.
The researchers evaluated both the total amount of physical activity like to variety of activitieswhich ranged from walking and running to resistance training, yoga, gardening and climbing stairs.
They were used task metabolic equivalent scores (MET) to measure activity levels and energy expenditure. This standard measurement is calculated by multiplying the time dedicated to each activity by its metabolic equivalent value.
During the follow-up period, 38847 participants died. Of these, 9901 deaths were caused by cardiovascular diseases10719 by cancer and 3159 per respiratory diseases.
People who were more active had a lower mortality riskand the advantage has stabilized at around 20 weekly MET hours, suggesting that surpassing this level brought small additional gains.
Walking showed the strongest association, where the most active had a risk of mortality 17% lower than those who are less active. Climbing stairs was associated with a 10% reduction.
In turn, tennis or squash were associated with a 15% lower risk, while rowing or gymnastics were associated with a 14% reduction. Running and resistance training each accounted for a 13% reduction in mortality risk, while running and cycling accounted for 11% and 4% reductions, respectively.
Swimming was the exceptionwithout any statistically significant association with reduced mortality.
The data also showed that exercise variety provided its own benefit, independent of total activity. After taking total exercise levels into account, participants who did the most activity had a 19% lower risk of death from all causes than those with the least variety of activities.
The benefit of exercise variety extended to specific causes of death. The group with the most diverse activity patterns had a 13 to 41% lower risk of death from cardiovascular diseases, cancer, respiratory diseases and other causes.
Like this, It is essential to vary your physical exercise and seek to perform new sports to keep the body healthy and increase life expectancy.
