Olympians live years longer than most people – K-News

Running 10 hours a week and more than 120 kilometers is considered extreme physical activity.

However, a recent study showSome Olympic-level professional athletes may have extended lifespans due to such high workloads.

The analysis included health data from the top 200 people who ran a sub-four-minute mile in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. A team of researchers from Canada and Australia said these professional runners lived nearly five years longer than the average person, on average.

The results obtained refute the idea that excessive physical activity has a negative impact on long-term health. Physical activity can be beneficial, at least for some people.

Although a large number of epidemiological studies exhibitAlthough physically active people live longer than inactive people, it is unclear whether exceeding recommended physical activity is beneficial or harmful to health.

Some scientists believe that the lifestyle of marathon runners and endurance cyclists or triathletes, perhapsIt puts excessive stress on the heart and increases the risk of early death. ableA sedentary lifestyle puts people at risk for health problems, but for experienced athletes, the story may be different.

In 2022, a study conducted by Harvard University showPeople who exceeded the recommended amount of exercise reduced their risk of death by 30% to 10% compared with those who met the recommended amount of exercise.

Indeed, University of Alberta cardiologist Stephen Fox and colleagues write that epidemiological studies of Tour de France cyclists, Olympic athletes, and rowers have shown an increase in life expectancy compared with the general population. Now the researchers show that this pattern also holds true for the fastest miler runners.

Athletes who can run a sub-four-minute mile are a unique group known for pushing their respiratory, cardiovascular, metabolic, and musculoskeletal systems to their limits. To achieve this level of speed, runners need to engage in high-intensity physical activity regularly throughout the week.

In 2018, cardiologists DiscoverThe top 20 athletes who ran a sub-four-minute mile lived an average of 12 years longer than their overall life expectancy. The new study looked at a larger cohort over three decades.

Interestingly, runners who ran a sub-four-minute mile in the 1960s had longer life expectancies than runners who accomplished the feat in subsequent decades. “This may reflect an increase in life expectancy in the overall population,” suggestionauthor, and “Control of some major communicable and non-communicable diseases”.

In other words, not all of the longevity benefits of professional athletes can be attributed to their lifestyle. For example, athletes may have more favorable genes than the general population. In the group of 200 long-distance runners, the researchers counted 20 pairs of siblings and several father-son pairs.

“Although we cannot determine the cause of death for most runners, studies of Tour de France cyclists and Olympic cohorts (including middle-distance runners) suggest that the longevity effect is primarily mediated through reductions in cardiovascular mortality and cancer,” Fox and colleagues wrote.

The team added that the results of the analysis confirm the benefits of exercise on longevity, even at the levels of training required to achieve high performance.