Exercising for 15 minutes a day adds three years to a person’s life expectancy, according to the first study to show there’s a health benefit from even low levels of physical activity.
In a study involving more than 400,000 people, those who exercised for 90 minutes a week were also 14 percent less likely to have died after eight years than those who were inactive, researchers at Taiwan’s National Health Research Institutes wrote in The Lancet medical journal on Wednesday. Every extra 15 minutes of exercise reduced the risk by a further 4 per cent.
The World Health Organization recommends adults aged 18 to 64 years exercise for at least 150 minutes a week. While one- third of American adults meet that goal, less than one-fifth of the population in East Asian nations such as China, Japan and Taiwan do.