Comfortable jogging extends life expectancy
Luise Heine has been an editor at since 2012. The qualified biologist studied in Regensburg and Brisbane (Australia) and gained experience as a journalist in television, in the Ratgeber-Verlag and in a print magazine. In addition to her work at , she also writes for children, for example for the Stuttgarter Kinderzeitung, and has her own breakfast blog, “Kuchen zum Frühstück”.
More posts by Luise Heine All content is checked by medical journalists.MunichJust lace up your shoes and go: Those who jog regularly live longer. However, it depends on the correct dose and intensity, otherwise the health benefits will disappear again.
5.6 years for women, 6.2 years for men - a study by Peter Schnohr and his colleagues at Frederiksberg Hospital in Copenhagen in 2012 quantified the gain in jogging over a lifetime. Now the scientists have stepped up again and researched how running should be practiced in order to achieve these values.
For their study, the Danish researchers followed the health of over 1,000 people who regularly trotted across the country for twelve years. 3,950 volunteers who were not active in sport, but were still healthy, served as controls. In their study, the scientists recorded how many hours the test persons spent jogging per week, its frequency and the subjective assessment of their own speed. During the study period, 28 from the jogging group and 128 from those who did not do sport died.
One to two and a half hours a week
When evaluating the data, the researchers came up with a little surprise: it was not the particularly hard-working joggers who had an increased life expectancy, but rather the leisurely runners. In figures, this means that those who jog for one to 2.4 hours per week have a lower mortality rate than non-joggers and intensive joggers.
“If you want to minimize your risk of death and increase your life expectancy, you should run a few times a week at a moderate speed,” advises the researcher. Doing more is not only superfluous, it is even dangerous. "If intensive training is carried out for decades, it is a health risk, especially for the cardiovascular system," explains Schnohr. These results are in line with previous studies, which also reported that excessive physical activity is more harmful than beneficial.
Enough breath to entertain
Where the right "comfort speed" is when jogging is very different from one individual to the next, because it is based on the pulse. It depends on various factors, such as fitness and age. Basically, the rule of thumb is that the load should be such that one should not run below 65 and not above 85 percent of the maximum heart rate. In other words, you should have enough breath left to be able to talk while you run. If you want to know exactly, you can take a fitness test including pulse measurement from a sports doctor and thus determine the correct speed. It is best to keep an eye on this when training with the help of a heart rate monitor.
Strengthened body through running training
Running that extends lives can be explained by various effects. On the one hand, it prevents many diseases. Endurance sport, for example, reduces the risk of cardiovascular diseases or diabetes mellitus. The blood pressure drops, cholesterol levels are favorably influenced and the musculoskeletal system and the immune system are strengthened. Jogging was apparently also an indicator of a healthier lifestyle: in general, the runners had lower blood pressure and body mass index. They were less likely to be smokers or diabetics. Last but not least, jogging burns a lot of calories: a runner who weighs 80 kilograms consumes more than 900 kilocalories in an hour.
Source: Schnohr P. et al. Dose of Jogging and Long-Term Mortality: The Copenhagen City Heart Study; Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Volume 65, Issue 5, 10 February 2015, Pages 420-422
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