• Past studies have shown that certain lifestyle choices, such as exercising regularly, may help extend longevity.
• A new study found that higher levels of physical activity may not benefit life span as much as previously thought.
• However, experts say regular activity is crucial for overall health and life quality.

For as long as there has been science, researchers have continued to look for ways to help us live longer.

“The length of the life span reflects the overall health of individuals,” Elina Sillanpää, PhD, associate professor in the Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences at the University of Jyväskylä in Finland told Medical News Today.

“Many people still die from diseases that are partially preventable through healthy lifestyles. For example, physical activity recommendations are based on studies investigating the associations between activity and life span. Physical activity can affect various diseases and the aging process. Life span is an outcome that may combine all potential health benefits of physical activity,” she said.

In one of the newest studies from the project, Sillanpää and her team report that higher levels of physical activity may not benefit lifespan as much as previously thought.

For this study, researchers analyzed health data from almost 23,000 Finnish twins born before 1958 who had been part of the Finnish Twin Cohort.

Study participants had their physical activity levels evaluated three times — in 1975, 1981, and 1990. And the mortality rate of participants was followed up until the end of 2020.

“Previous animal and twin studies suggested that the association between physical activity and lifespan is not as straightforward as commonly thought, which piqued our interest in this topic,” Sillanpää said.

“We believed that by using novel methods — such as polygenic scoring to determine inherited disease risk, epigenetic clocks to estimate biological age, and longitudinal twin designs to adjust for genetic confounding — we could produce new evidence on this topic,” she explained.

Study participants were divided into four groups — sedentary, moderately active, active, and highly active — based on their physical activity data over the 15-year follow-up.

When the different groups were analyzed at the 30-year follow-up point, researchers found those in the sedentary and moderately active groups had a 7% lower risk of mortality, which was the highest benefit percentage amongst the four groups.

Additionally, researchers found that meeting the World Health Organization’s (WHO) recommended 150 to 300 minutes of moderate or 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous activity per week did not lower participants’ mortality risk or change their genetic disease risk.

“Our results suggest that meeting WHO recommendations for physical activity is sufficient for life span benefits, and more intense exercise does not provide additional benefits. Similar results have been shown before. However, we also demonstrated that the association of physical activity and life span may be prone to bias due to several factors.”
— Elina Sillanpää, PhD

“People with diseases or underlying health conditions may be less active, and it’s natural for individuals close to death to move less, which may cause reverse causality,” she continued.

“Other lifestyle factors may also explain the association; physically active individuals usually smoke less and have healthier diets. It’s important to note that physical activity is a voluntary behavior, and our genetic preferences partially explain whether exercise is easy for us or not. Some genetic variation may also be associated with healthy behavior and lower risk of common diseases, as shown by our group’s previous studies,” Sillanpää said.

MNT had the opportunity to speak with Cheng-Han Chen, MD, a board certified interventional cardiologist and medical director of the Structural Heart Program at MemorialCare Saddleback Medical Center in Laguna Hills, CA, about this study.

“This prospective study followed a group of people over many decades and found that their level of physical activity did not seem to correspond to their risk of mortality,” Chen commented. “This suggests that the health benefits of exercise may be confounded by other factors, and that exercise is just one of many behaviors (including eating a balanced diet, avoiding smoking, etc.) that people should try to follow in order to improve their overall health.”

“Other studies will be needed to determine whether these findings are applicable to a wider population of people besides Finns,” Chen added.

After reading this study, readers may wonder why they should continue to exercise if it doesn’t help increase their life span.

MNT posed this question to Tracy Zaslow, MD, primary care sports medicine specialist at Cedars-Sinai Orthopaedics in Los Angeles and a team physician for Angel City Football Club and LA Galaxy, about this study.

“I would say number one, there’s a lot of studies that do show that life span is increased,” Zaslow explained. “But probably even more importantly, no matter what, the quality of life is improved by physical activity, in the sense that just being able to do more, more easily without pain.”

“We know that the amount of muscle that you have decreases with age. You lose muscle as you age, starting pretty early on — 30s (and) 40s. So we need to work extra as we approach those decades to keep that strength so that it’s easy to move around.”
— Tracy Zaslow, MD

“I think a lot of people stop their exercise because it’s hard to pick up the golf ball when it goes in the hole — they can’t get up from (a crouched) position,” Zaslow added. “And if you just work on the strength of the legs, of the glutes, of the core muscles, then continuing those activities becomes an easy task, and a more engaging and enjoyable task.”