veryone has physical activity needs to take care of good health and increase longevity, including older adults. Researchers have now found that some sorts of leisure activities might help lower the chance of death within the elderly.

In a study, published Wednesday in JAMA Network Open, researchers tried to search out out whether there are different leisure activities that may affect older adults’ mortality risk.

“Despite the strong evidence of the useful role of physical activity in longevity, less is understood about how engaging in the identical amount of various leisure time activity types (comparable to running and cycling) are related to mortality risks and whether some activities are related to a greater profit than others,” they wrote.

The team checked out the information of 272,550 adults, aged between 59 and 82 years, who accomplished a questionnaire about their leisure-time activities, the National Cancer Institute noted in a news release. They focused on seven leisure activities – running, cycling, swimming, racquet sports, golf, walking and other aerobic activities.

Researchers found that each one the sorts of activities were related to lower mortality risk, with “any” combination of those activities resulting in a 13% lower death risk. The very best reduction in mortality risks was found with racquet sports (16% reduction) and running (15% reduction).

Engaging in racquet sports was also linked to the best (27%) reduction in cardiovascular death risk, while running was related to the best (19%) reduction in cancer death risk.

“These activities each require synchronized motion from many muscles for proper form, and racquet sports also require hand-eye coordination and intermittent bursts of very high intensity, which might also improve physical functioning,” the researchers wrote, noting that such “combination sorts of motion” are in keeping with the physical activity guidelines.

Based on the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, adults must have “not less than” 150 to 300 minutes of moderate-intensity or 75 minutes of vigorous physical activity per week. The identical guidelines apply to older adults, who’re also really helpful to have a “multicomponent” physical activity routine, which incorporates balance, aerobic and muscle-strengthening activities.

Elderly individuals who cannot complete 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity per week should try to stay physically lively “as their abilities and conditions allow.”

Those that were probably the most physically lively and even exceeded these recommendations naturally had higher reductions of their mortality risks, based on the National Cancer Institute. And even those that were only moderately lively in a mixture of the seven activities saw a 5% lower risk of all-cause mortality in comparison with those that didn’t take part in any of them.

“Our findings that every type of activities are related to greater longevity support the evidence that leisure time physical activity can reduce the chance of mortality,” the researchers wrote. “Although we found differences in associations between activities, participation in any of the activities was related to lower mortality compared with those that didn’t take part in each activity, including moderate-intensity activities.”