Prime Highlights:
- Even small changes in daily activity, like five extra minutes of exercise or reducing sitting time by 30 minutes, can significantly reduce the risk of death.
- Adding a few minutes of sleep or increasing vegetable intake can extend lifespan and improve overall health.
Key Facts:
- Walking at a moderate pace for just five additional minutes per day can lower mortality by around 10%, and cutting one hour of sitting daily reduces risk by 13%.
- Following healthy daily habits, 7–8 hours of sleep, 40+ minutes of moderate activity, and a balanced diet, can add over nine years of life in good health.
Background:
Making modest adjustments to daily routines, such as exercising for five extra minutes, sitting less, or slightly improving sleep and diet, could significantly extend lifespan and lower the risk of early death, according to findings from two large studies published this week.
For more sedentary individuals, the gains were also notable. Participants who averaged only two minutes of moderate activity per day saw a six percent reduction in death risk by adding five extra minutes, rising to nine percent with ten additional minutes.
Reducing sitting time also showed strong benefits. Cutting sedentary behaviour by an hour a day was associated with a 13 percent lower risk of death, while reducing sitting by just 30 minutes, around five percent of an average adult’s sedentary time, was linked to preventing more than seven percent of deaths.
The analysis drew on data from over 135,000 adults across Norway, Sweden, the United States, and the UK Biobank, with participants followed for approximately eight years. Recognising this, researchers focused on “realistic and achievable” changes, such as short walks or brief breaks from prolonged sitting.
Experts welcomed the findings but cautioned that the research was observational. This means it cannot definitively prove that the changes directly cause longer life, though the associations are considered strong.
“The encouraging message here is that even five extra minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity a day can make a difference,” said Daniel Bailey, a reader at Brunel University of London, who was not involved in the study.
For people with the poorest overall habits, adding just five minutes of sleep per day and half a serving more vegetables could translate into roughly one extra year of life, the study suggested. Sleep alone would require about 25 additional minutes per day to gain one extra year, with a potential maximum benefit of three years.
The most significant gains were seen when healthy behaviours were combined. Participants who slept seven to eight hours a night, exercised for more than 40 minutes a day, and followed a healthy diet were associated with more than nine additional years of life and good health compared with those with the least healthy lifestyles.
