No-sweat exercise may prolong life for the elderly: study

Paris: A few hours a week of light exercise — walking the dog, puttering about in the garden — lower the risk of death in older men, even if workouts are brief, researchers said Tuesday.Their findings, reported in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, challenge two long-held assumptions about the benefits of physical activity for the elderly.

To improve health and reduce the risk of dying, according to many national health authorities, workouts must be strenuous and more long-lasting.In Britain, for example, the elderly are advised to do moderate-to-intense exercise at least 150 minutes per week, divided up into segments of no less than 10 minutes.

“UK and US physical activity guidelines don’t mention any benefits of light activity,” lead author Barbara Jefferis, an epidemiologist at University College London, told AFP. “When those guidelines were written there wasn’t enough evidence to make a recommendation.”

The study, which tracked 1,200 men without heart disease in their early 70s and late 80s, says such guidelines should be revised. “The results suggest that all activities — no matter how modest — are beneficial,” Jefferis said.

Encouraging older adults to engage in no-sweat exercise also appears to be more realistic. Only 16 percent of the volunteers lived up to current British exercise guidelines in sessions of at least 10 minutes. Two-thirds, however, did hit the weekly, 150-minute quota in shorter snippets of activity.