Muscle training / aerobic exercise: 40% reduction in mortality risk at the nationally recommended level

A study conducted in the United States found that practicing the levels of exercise recommended by national guidelines could reduce the risk of death. Those who met the recommended levels for both muscle training and aerobic exercise had a 40% lower risk of death than those who lacked exercise.

Does nationally recommended levels of exercise reduce the risk of death?

Lack of exercise is known to have a number of adverse health effects, so many countries around the world encourage people to exercise regularly and provide a level of exercise to do. I will.

The "Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, Second Edition" [Note 1] revised in 2018 in the United States provides adults in the United States with the following muscle training and aerobic exercise in their leisure time. It is recommended to carry out in. However, there was no convincing evidence that this level of exercise reduced the risk of death.

Therefore, researchers in China and the United States should analyze the information on exercise habits of adults in the United States accumulated in large-scale observational studies and the data on subsequent deaths, and exercise at a level according to this guideline. I wanted to clarify the relationship between and mortality risk.

We analyzed 479,856 people aged 18 and over who were enrolled in the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), a large-scale observational study that began more than 60 years ago in the United States, from 1997 to 2014. It is the data of. We have associated data on the exercise habits of each of these participants with information on deaths registered by December 31, 2015 in the National Death Index (NDI).

The authors stratified the subjects into the following four groups based on the amount of muscle training and aerobic exercise performed per week (note that among the aerobic exercises recommended by the guidelines, medium intensity Exercise is defined in this study as "low to medium intensity exercise").

(1) Insufficient exercise that does not meet the recommended amount for both aerobic exercise and muscle training: 268,193 (55.9%)

(2) Only muscle training is above the recommended level: 21,428 (4.5%)

(3) Only aerobic exercise is above the recommended level: 113,851 people (23.7%)

(4) Both aerobic exercise and muscle training are above the recommended level: 76,384 (15.9%)

For these people, deaths from all causes (total deaths) and deaths by cause of death (cardiovascular disease [myocardial infarction, stroke, etc.], cancer, chronic lower airway disease [COPD, etc.], accidents and trauma, Alzheimer's disease , Diabetes, influenza and pneumonia, nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, death from nephrotic syndrome), participants' characteristics (age, gender, race, academic background, marital status, BMI [physical index], smoking habits, drinking habits, The analysis was conducted in consideration of the presence or absence of chronic diseases.

In (4), the percentage of people who met the recommended levels for both aerobic exercise and muscle training decreased with increasing age for both men and women. Also, compared to those who did not meet the recommended levels, those who met were younger, more Caucasian, more unmarried, more unmarried, less smoked, more educated, and more normal weight. The number of patients with chronic diseases was decreasing.

Those who meet the recommended level have an 11-40% reduction in mortality risk

At the median follow-up of 8.75 years, 59,819 people had died. Of these, 13,509 have cardiovascular disease, 14,375 have cancer, 3188 have chronic lower airway disease, 2477 have accidents or trauma, 1470 have Alzheimer's disease, 1803 have diabetes, and 1135 have influenza or nephritis. , 1129 people died of nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrotic syndrome.

Taking the group (1), whose amount of exercise did not reach the recommended level, as the reference group, those who performed the recommended level of muscle training and those who performed the recommended level of aerobic exercise, both of which are recommended. Those who reached the level all had a significantly lower risk of total mortality (11%, 29%, and 40% reduction, respectively).

A similar pattern was found in deaths from cardiovascular disease, cancer, and chronic lower respiratory tract disease. For deaths from other causes of death, a reduced risk was observed only in the group where aerobic exercise had reached the recommended level.

The results obtained this time show that people who perform muscle training or aerobic exercise according to the guidelines in their leisure time have a lower risk of death, and aerobic exercise offers a wider range of benefits than muscle training. I did.