Exercise Intensity Impacts On Life Expectancy.

EXERCISE INTENSITY AND LONGER LIFE

VIGOROUS ACTIVITY AND LONGEVITY

Depending upon how the "kinder, gentler" recommendations from the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are interpreted and acted upon, we might either see more sedentary people becoming active, or more active people settling for minimal doses of activity in place of vigorous exercise.

Whatever the trend in individual decisions on the matter, there are consequences for public health (with its societal costs), not to mention a potential impact on the health/fitness business and profession that has grown around the appreciation and demand for exercise facilities and services.

Since our last round of debate, a major new study has been reported in The Journal of the American Medical Association (April 19). The report, entitled "Exercise Intensity and Longevity in Men: The Harvard Alumni Health Study," quotes the ACSM/CDC Exercise Lite recommendation in its introduction: "Every U.S. adult should accumulate 30 minutes or more of moderate-intensity physical activity on most, preferably all, days of the week." Then the report unfolds the findings of the investigation into "the relative merits of vigorous and non-vigorous exercise and their associations with premature mortality."

The important finding of the study was that vigorous activity was associated with longevity. Non-vigorous activity was not associated with longer life, even when the same amount of energy was expended. Greater amounts of vigorous activity were associated with lower death rates from all causes.

Vigorous exercise was described as a work level of 6 METs or more. One MET is the rate of energy expenditure at rest. For a 150-pound individual, resting energy expenditure is about 68 Calories per hour. So, 6 METs would be about 410 Calories per hour.

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The group of men that burned between 750 and 1,500 Calories per week in activity, and who worked at less than 6 METs, had a risk of death that was 98 percent as high as those who burned fewer than 150 Calories. The vigorous group that burned the same number of calories, but at an intensity of 6 METs or more, reduced their risk of death from all causes to 87 percent of that of the lowest exercise group. Statistical analysis of the results showed that death rates went down in the vigorously exercising group as the amount of exercise increased. But men who exercised only non-vigorously did not reduce their death rates with greater amounts of exercise.

Perhaps exercise-for-health can be overdone. The investigators noted a drop-off in benefits after about 3,500 Calories of total energy expenditure per week or after 3,000 Calories of vigorous energy expenditure.

The authors, I-Min Lee, Chung-cheng Hsieh and Ralph S. Paffenbarger, Jr., concluded: "Our findings indicate that sedentary individuals should increase their activity level to enhance longevity. Specifically, vigorous activities were associated with greater longevity. However, we strongly believe that even non-vigorous exercise is preferable to being sedentary. Our findings pertain only to all-cause mortality; meanwhile, even modest exercise has been shown to improve, for example, lipid and glucose profiles."

So, there's room for Exercise Lite to benefit those who will leave the couch and begin to get active. But, people who want the complete health benefits of exercise are well advised to go beyond Exercise Lite and undertake the levels of vigorous activity that result in fitness.

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