Is running the “best exercise” for a longer life? While hitting, the pavement has been shown to lower a person’s risk for heart disease and cancer, regulate weight and possibly blood pressure. New research, published in the journal Progress in Cardiovascular Disease, reports that “a single hour of running can add seven hours to a person’s life.”
Per the study, which was conducted over the course of three years, investigated whether other forms of exercise like walking and biking provide the same benefits as running. Scientists and cardiologists from five U.S. universities gathered data from studies of more than 55,000 people on health and premature death. “We found runners showed bigger significant reductions in mortality than people that are active in other types of exercise,” said Duck-chul Lee, an assistant professor at Iowa State University and the paper’s lead author.
The findings revealed that individuals who ran and did other forms of exercise lowered their risk of premature death by 43 percent. Runners who didn’t participate in any other type of exercise lowered their risk by 30 percent. Researchers found that people who did others forms of exercise but not running lowered their risk by 12 percent.