What is successful aging? According to British researchers, this consists of aging free of depression, memory loss, and or functional incapacity. So, how does one age successfully? According to a new study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, the key is 150 minutes of vigorous exercise per week.
For the study, researchers followed 12,000 elderly Western Australian men over the course of thirteen years. Those who undertook 150 minutes of vigorous exercise per week extended their lives by two or three years. More interestingly, those men also live better, more independent lives, looking after their own finances, looking after themselves, retaining mental acuity, and not ending up in a home.
Men who started out the study as inactive but became more active as the study continued gained some benefits, but not as much as those men who had been exercising all along. However, men who decreased or stopped exercising lost any benefit—suggesting that it’s never too late to start being active, but one shouldn’t stop. Unless you’d like to end up in adult diapers in a nursing home, for some reason.
