If you want to delay the consequence of aging, you’d better start running on daily basis according to a new study published in the August 11 issue of the journal Archives of Internal Medicine.

It has long been known that physical exercise improves our life, helping us maintaining a healthy heart and body. Previous research has also shown that exercise improves thinking and memory in people with normal brain activity. How is that possible? Well, the researchers believe that exercise increases blood flow to the brain, delivering oxygen and nutrients to brain cells, and elevates growth hormones. That’s exactly the reason for which exercising is recommended even in the case of people with Alzheimer’s.

According to a study published last month in the journal Neurology, exercising on regular basis may help slow brain shrinkage in people with early Alzheimer’s. The disease is also a consequence of aging and results in mental and physical disability.

The current study made by the Stanford University School of Medicine suggests that people over 50 who ran regularly over several years suffered fewer disabilities, had a longer span of active life and lowered their risk of dying early by 50 percent compared to those who were, as often they are called, couch-potatoes.

For the study, lead author Professor James Fries and colleagues surveyed 284 members of a nationwide running club and 156 similar, healthy people as controls. The participants had similar social and economic backgrounds and all were 50 or older. Each year, starting in 1984, they had to fill out an annual questionnaire on exercise frequency, weight, and disability for eight activities including rising, dressing and grooming, hygiene, eating, walking, reach, handgrip and routine physical activities.

Most of the participants did some exercise, but runners exercised as much as 200 minutes a week, compared to 20 minutes for the non-runners. After 19 years of study, just 15 percent of the runners had died, compared with 34 percent of the non-runners.

Both runners and non-runners became more disabled with age, but for the runners the onset of disability started later.

“Running delayed the onset of disability by an average of 16 years, and that is largely a conservative number, because the control group was pretty darn healthy,” Prof. Fries said.

Running was also linked to fewer heart and artery related deaths, fewer deaths from cancer, neurological disease, infections, and other causes.

“We did not expect this. The health benefits of exercise are greater than we thought,” Prof. Fries said.

The running activity decreased by the age of 70. However, “ex-runners” didn’t stop exercising. The majority continued doing some “vigorous exercising.”

“Our findings of decreased disability in addition to prolonged survival among middle-aged and older adults participating in routine physical activities further support recommendations to encourage moderate to vigorous physical activity at all ages,” Dr Eliza Chakravarty, who was also involved in the study, said.