Exercise After 60 Years Could Help Longevity

Exercise has been always of use when it comes to physical health and fitness and there are umpteen studies to around importance of exercise and fitness as well as physical health. Here’s one more study but around exercise after 60 years of age and how it could help you reduce cardiovascular disease threat. As per the World health organization over 900 million people were above 60 years of age across the world by 2015. Well, age does affect the fitness levels of humans because the body deteriorates as it ages but maintaining activity or increasing activity level could help reducing the heart condition risks like strokes and heart attacks.

Comparatively, people who did less exercise as they aged had over 25% more risk of getting heart conditions besides blood vessel issues. People who increased their activity levels reduced the risk of heart disease by around 11%.

The study was carried out by a team of researchers at the Department of bio-medical Sciences of South Korea’s Seoul National University. Lead by author Kyuwoong Kim, with team did an analysis of around 1, 119, 935 men and women of the age group 60 years and above. The data used for the study was taken from the National Health Insurance Service (NIHS). This organization possesses the healthcare data of over 97% Koreans. The data in use included participants of an average age group of 67 years including 47% of males across years 2009-2010 and 2011-2012 besides the data of the aforementioned participants uptil 2016.

The study involved asking questions to the participants about their lifestyle as well as physical activity levels. Most of them had a moderate activity level of half an hour per day that included activities like gardening, brisk- walking as well as dancing. Rigorous activity mean doing 20 minutes of fast cycling, running or aerobic exercise.

The second round of health checkup had the participants make variations in their activity levels. While only 22% of the participants did increase their activity levels, over 54% actually reduced them by the time of the second screening. The researchers also analyzed the data from hospital records claiming stroke and heart diseases for the period of January 2013 – December 2016.

The study revealed that the people who increased their activity levels from inactivity to moderate or high levels of activity atleast three to four times a week did reduce the risk of heart attack by 11%.