A new study shows how important workouts are for a healthier and longer life.
A study finds the sweet spot in the amount of weekly exercise. Â The data was gathered over 100,000 patients and found just how much people should be working out in order to increase their lives. The answer is likely more than you originally thought.
The study found that people who followed the US Department of Health and Human Services’ recommendation of working out between 150 – 300 per week had 20-21% of lower mortality risk. It also found that people who performed twice or four times more than that number had even more health benefits, suggesting that you can’t really work out too much.
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The study was published in the journal Circulation with the aim of figuring out if “prolonged, vigorous or moderate intensity physical activity above the recommended levels” provided more benefits or if it had the potential to harm people. In order to see these results, researchers collected data of over 30 years of participants’ lives, acquiring a full picture of their lifestyles, activity levels and mortality rates.
Researchers gathered all available data on patients, including their BMIs, ages, medical history, diagnosed illnesses, and more. Participants also reported their personal habits and submitted exercise data.
The study found that adults who performed double the recommended range of workouts each week had the lowest risk of mortality, particularly in regards to cardiovascular diseases. There were no negative side effects associated with working out more than what’s recommended by the US Department of Health and Human Services.
“This finding may reduce the concerns around the potential harmful effect of engaging in high levels of physical activity observed in several previous studies,” said Dong Hoon Lee, Sc.D., M.S., research associate at Harvard.
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Still, researchers don’t want people to overdo it in terms of exercise, taking this evidence and immediately linking longer workouts with a longer life, even though it is what it implies. They make it clear that sticking to the recommended minutes of workouts per week is sufficient for a healthy life, preventing diseases and taking care of your cardiovascular system.
