I just came across a column today about a study, which is published on Monday shows middle-aged members of a runner's club were half as likely to die over a 20-year period as people who did not run.
Running reduced the risk not only of heart disease, but of cancer and neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's, researchers at Stanford University in California found. "At 19 years, 15 percent of runners had died compared with 34 percent of controls,"
The team surveyed 284 members of a nationwide running club and 156 similar, healthy people as controls. They all came from the university's faculty and staff and had similar social and economic backgrounds, and all were 50 or older.
At the beginning, the runners were leaner and less likely to smoke compared with the controls. And they exercised more over the whole study period in general. Most of the runners have stopped running as they reached their 70s. But it was difficult to find people who totally stopped exercising. "Almost all of them did something else. They continued their vigorous exercise,"
The study also showed that people cannot use the risk of injury as an excuse not to run — the runners had fewer injuries of all kinds, including to their knees.
According to the survey by a Korea research center, the average healthy age for Korean men is 67.4 years old while that of women 69.6 years old, that means Koreans spend the last 11 years of their life under sickness or disease. I want to challenge you guys to run if you can, and live long and healthily not only for you but for your family and friends. |