Researchers found that of the “least-fit” versus the “slightly more fit” of the nearly 4,400 healthy Americans in their recent study, roughly 20 percent with the lowest physical fitness levels were twice as likely to die over the next nine years as the 20 percent with the next-lowest fitness levels. (To put it another way, those 20 percent who were nearly at the lowest fitness levels.) This is the time-honored “bad news/good news” outcome. It is undoubtedly bad news if you are a resolute couch potato. However, it is genuinely good news for those who haven’t quite hit rock bottom in the sedentary lifestyle department but are not, by any stretch of the imagination, energetic. Apparently, those people who remain only moderately fit as they grow older may live longer than those who are completely out-of-shape, the study suggests.

The study included 4,384 middle-aged and older men and women whose fitness levels were assessed during exercise treadmill tests sometime between 1986 and 2006. The researchers then observed their progress for approximately nine years. Such factors as obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure were taken into consideration in the study. This, in and of itself, accentuates the significants of physical fitness itself. In an email to Reuters Health, Dr. Sandra Mandic, of the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, and lead researcher of the study noted: “Our findings suggest that a sedentary lifestyle, rather than differences in cardiovascular risk factors or age, may explain the two-fold higher mortality rates in the least-fit versus slightly more fit individuals.”

Nearly two-thirds of the participants at the least-fit level failed to get at least 30 minutes of moderate activity, five or more days a week, which was the minimum recommended amount of exercise. “These results emphasize the importance of improving and maintaining high fitness levels by engaging in regular physical activity,” Mandic said, “particularly in poorly-fit individuals.”

Separating the participants into five groups based on fitness levels, the researchers discovered that 25 percent of the least-fit men and women had died during the study period, as opposed to 13 percent of those who were in slightly better shape. Only 6 percent of the most-fit group (i.e., the ones who “hit the bull’s eye,” so to speak) had died during the follow-up period.

The five fitness-level groups reported little difference, overall, in their reported exercise practices during most of their adult lives, but significantly, they varied in activity levels only in recent years. “Since it is recent physical activity that offers protection,” Mandic said, “it is important to maintain regular physical activity throughout life.”

In this particular study, regardless of weight and other health problems such as those mentioned above, fitness is decidedly linked to longevity. As such, exercise is vital to the extension of our lifespan. And, perhaps it goes without saying, imagine the health benefits we could all experience if we worked our way up into the higher levels of fitness.

SOURCE: Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, August 2009.

Technorati Tags: exercise, longevity, middle age, physical fitness