Staying Active for Life: Long-Term Exercise Cuts Risk of Early Death by Up to 40%
New analysis finds that both starting and maintaining physical activity in adulthood dramatically reduce mortality, with even small increases proving meaningful.
Ever wondered if changing exercise habits in adulthood truly impacts lifespan, or if “banked” activity from your past still pays health dividends today? This massive meta-analysis, drawing on over 80 studies, delivers the clearest answers yet for anyone worried it's too late to start, or too hard to keep up with fitness habits.
PMID: 40639966
Key Points
Aim
The study set out to clarify how long-term patterns and the cumulative amount of physical activity (PA) across adulthood—whether people start, stop, or maintain activity levels—relate to the risk of dying from any cause, heart disease, or cancer.
Methods
Researchers systematically reviewed and meta-analysed 85 prospective, population-based studies up to April 2024. Included studies assessed adult physical activity at least twice and tracked deaths from all causes, cardiovascular disease (CVD), or cancer. Various statistical models captured PA trajectories (increasing, decreasing, consistent), recurrent measures, and overall accumulation to assess risk differences.
Results
Consistent or Increasing Activity: Adults who consistently maintained or increased their activity level had a 20–40% lower risk of dying from any cause, and a 30–40% lower risk of cardiovascular death, compared to those who were always inactive.
Starting Late Still Helps: Even adults who started being physically active later in life saw similar risk reductions—reinforcing the mantra, “It’s never too late to start moving.”
Decreasing Activity: Those who reduced their physical activity lost nearly all those mortality risk reductions, with benefits becoming negligible or uncertain.
Cancer Mortality Results: Physical activity had a weaker and less reliable association with death from cancer than with heart disease or overall mortality.
Guidelines and Dose-Response: Health benefits peaked around the amount of activity recommended by guidelines (150–300 minutes of moderate or 75–150 minutes of vigorous weekly); going above yielded minimal extra benefits, but even activity below this threshold delivered noticeable improvements.
Leisure-Time vs. Total PA: Being regularly active during leisure time seemed slightly more protective than high total (e.g., job plus leisure) activity, suggesting not all types of movement confer equal health effects.
Practical Takeaways
Initiating or maintaining moderate to vigorous activity at any point in adulthood slashes the risk of premature death by about a third, regardless of age or past inactivity.
Consistency matters: staying active is far more beneficial than being active only in the past.
For those struggling to meet activity recommendations, any increase is valuable, even if it’s less than the “ideal” guideline.
Current or future interventions should focus as much on helping already active people maintain habits as on motivating inactive people to start.