Any running at all

1

Do runners live longer?

In six long-running studies pooled together, runners had a 27% lower risk of dying than non-runners.

Runners may differ from other people in many ways, so running is easy to study badly. A team of researchers in Australia, Finland and elsewhere pooled the long-term studies that met their rules: adults from the general population were asked whether they ran, then followed to see who died. Fourteen papers from six groups of people followed over time qualified, covering 232,149 adults.¹

The follow-up lasted from 5.5 to 35 years, and 25,951 of the adults died in that time.¹

Runners had a 27% lower risk of dying from any cause than non-runners. For death from heart and blood vessel disease it was 30% lower, and for death from cancer 23% lower. These are shares of the risk, not counts of people.¹

If you run, you are in this comparison: runners of any amount were set against people who did not run at all.¹

These studies watched what people did and did not assign running, so other habits may share the credit. A 2017 review of the field gave a similar range, 25 to 40% lower.^1,2

2

Does more running add more?

Not clearly. For weekly frequency, time, pace and total volume, the pooled studies found no clear trend in benefit.

The same review asked a second question: among runners, who gains most, the heavy runner or the light one? It tested weekly frequency, weekly time, pace and total volume. None showed a clear trend. Its authors concluded that higher doses may not necessarily be linked with greater benefit.¹

One large study looked at this in one group. It asked 55,137 adults, 44 years old on average, about running on a medical questionnaire, then followed them for 15 years on average.³

Runners had 30% lower risk of dying from any cause than non-runners, and 45% lower from heart and blood vessel disease. The authors put that at about 3 more years of life expectancy. Both are shares of the risk.³

Then they split the runners into fifths by running time, distance, frequency, total effort and speed. The benefit was similar in every fifth.³

"No clear trend" does not prove that more adds nothing. A small rise, or one blurred by running that people reported from memory, can go unseen.^1,3

If you run more than most people do, these results do not say it is too much. They say only that no extra gain in lasting longer could be shown.^1,3

3

How little is enough?

Weekly running under 51 minutes, one or two times a week, or slower than 6 miles an hour was each linked with lower risk.

The pooled review reached the same floor from the other side. Its authors wrote that any amount of running, even just once a week, is better than no running, judged by deaths.¹

The 55,137-adult study also looked for the floor. Runners who ran under 51 minutes a week, one or two times a week, or slower than 6 miles an hour each had lower risk of dying than non-runners. The authors summed it up as running for even 5 to 10 minutes a day.³

That study also tracked running habits over the years. Runners who kept it up had 29% lower risk of dying from any cause, and 50% lower from heart and blood vessel disease, than people who never ran.³

A Danish study, the Copenhagen City Heart Study, followed about 5,000 healthy adults, joggers and non-joggers. Those who jogged 1 to 2.4 hours a week had the lowest death rate, and the best paces were slow or average. For the slow pace, the range was wide enough to include no difference. The 1-to-2.4-hour group's risk was less than a third of the non-joggers', though the range around that figure was wide.⁴

If you run, six miles an hour is a 10 minute mile, or about 6 minutes a kilometre. A slower run than that was still linked with lower risk.³

4

Can you run too much?

One Danish study found no clear benefit in the hardest joggers, but its estimate was too uncertain to show harm either.

The same Copenhagen study sorted joggers into light, moderate and strenuous, judging by pace, amount and frequency together. Light joggers had the lowest death rate, moderate joggers a smaller and less certain gain, and strenuous joggers no clear difference from people who did not jog. The authors described a U-shaped link.⁴

The range around the strenuous result was very wide, from about half the non-joggers' risk to eight times it. So the study could not tell harm from benefit. The pooled review above tested for a trend with dose and found no clear one.^1,4

A broader check looked at all leisure activity, not only running, in 661,137 adults. Benefit rose up to about 3 to 5 times the minimum in the US guidelines of the time, then levelled off.⁵

At 10 or more times that minimum, the study saw no sign of harm. That is moderate to vigorous activity of every kind, as people reported it, so it speaks to being active, not to running alone.⁵

5

What does running change in the body?

In trials, a year of running lowered resting heart rate and raised fitness in healthy adults who had not been exercising.

Death records say little about why. So researchers pooled trials in which healthy, inactive adults were given a running programme, or nothing, for at least 8 weeks. Of the 49 articles included, 35 supplied data that could be combined.⁶

In the pooled estimate for one year of training, running had lowered resting heart rate by about 7 beats a minute and body weight by about 3 kg. It had raised VO2 max, the most oxygen your body can use in a minute, by about 7 points.⁶

These programmes were bigger than the least that counted above: on average 3.7 sessions and 2.3 hours a week, for about 5 months. The longer people trained, the larger the gains.⁶

Many watches report resting heart rate and an estimate of VO2 max. Those are two numbers you can follow if you start.

6

What does this mean for you?

A little running was linked with a lower risk of dying. More was not linked with a clear extra gain in these studies.

1. A little counts. Even 5 to 10 minutes a day was linked with lower risk of dying in the large study.³
2. Slow counts. A pace under 6 miles an hour was already linked with lower risk in the large study. In Copenhagen, average pace had the clearer result.^3,4
3. Keeping it up counts. In the large study, people who kept running over the years had the clearest benefits.³
4. More is a separate question. The studies counted deaths. They did not measure race times or how running feels.¹
5. The hard end. Very hard, frequent running is the least certain part: the strenuous joggers in the Copenhagen study gave no clear answer.⁴
6. A heart condition, or a long break from exercise? Ask your doctor how to start.