For people who run regularly, you may be extending your disability-free, higher quality of life. When senior author, James Fries, began research on vigorous exercise in 1984, many scientists expected the results would do more harm than good. Some experts believed the long-term effect of serious running would be an onslaught of orthopedic injuries, with older runners suffering from chronic injury. But Fries believed it would improve quality of life and reduce the period at the end of a person's life where they couldn't carry out daily tasks on their own.

The study, appearing in the Archives of Internal Medicine, tracked 538 runners over age 50, comparing them to a similar group of nonrunners. The followup survey of subjects, now in their 70's and 80's, asked about their ability to perform everyday activities such as walking, dressing and grooming, getting out of a chair, and gripping objects. By following national death records, researchers found that nineteen years into the study, 34% of nonrunners had died, compared to only 15% of the runners.

During the study, runners ran an average of four hours a week. After 21 years, the running time declined by 76 minutes, but participants continued to see health benefits. On average, both groups become more disabled after 21 years of aging, but for the runners, the onset of disability was delayed. Fries concludes, "Runners' initial disability was 16 years later than nonrunners. By and large, the runners have stayed healthy."

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