"Running for just a few minutes each day can reduce the risk of dying from heart disease," The Guardian reports. Ultimately, you can’t outrun the Grim Reaper. But this news accurately reflects the results of a large long-term US study on health outcomes. And unlike yesterday’s superficially similar brief exercise story, this study seems to have legs.
The research reported on today found people who ran had a reduced risk of death from heart disease, as well as death from any cause, compared with non-runners. Interestingly, a protective effect was seen regardless of running time, amount, duration, frequency or speed. People who ran just a modest amount, less than 51 minutes a week, also had a reduction in risk.
This equates to roughly seven minutes a day, although it should be noted this study did not specifically look at the effect of seven minutes of running a day. These "modest" runners were found to have a 55% reduction in cardiovascular-associated death risk and a 30% reduction in any type of death compared with non-runners.