More exercise is better — at least when it comes to cutting risk of death.
That’s the conclusion of a study of 15,660 Caucasian and black men, average age 59, who were given treadmill tests to determine their level of fitness. The men, tested in Washington, D.C., and Palo Alto, Calif., were followed for about seven years.
Those who were in the “very highly fit” category had a 70 percent lower death risk during that period than those in the “low fit” category. The moderately fit had about a 50 percent lower death risk compared with the low-fit group.
Walking briskly for 30 minutes four to six times a week can put you in the moderately fit mode, says Peter Kokkinos, director of an exercise testing lab at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Washington and lead author of the study, published online in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. He says “adding a little jogging, push yourself a bit” will raise your fit zone.
