Figuring two hours per week of training, since that was the average reported by runners in the Cooper Institute study, the researchers estimated
that a typical runner would spend less than six months actually running over the course of almost 40 years, but could expect an increase in life expectancy of 3.2 years, for a net gain of about 2.8 years.
An Hour of Running May Add 7 Hours to Your Life -
Running may be the single most effective exercise to increase life expectancy, according to a new review
and analysis of past research about exercise and premature death.
So for the new study, which was published last month in Progress in Cardiovascular Disease, Dr. Lee
and his colleagues set out to address those and related issues by reanalyzing data from the Cooper Institute and also examining results from a number of other large-scale recent studies looking into the associations between exercise and mortality.
High-mileage runners wondered if they could be doing too much,
and if at some undefined number of miles or hours, running might become counterproductive and even contribute to premature mortality,
And a few people questioned whether running really added materially to people’s life spans.
The gains in life expectancy are capped at around three extra years, he says, however much people run.
Improvements in life expectancy generally plateaued at about four hours of running per week, Dr. Lee says.