Great News: Even Very Infrequent Running Has Major Health Benefits

Any amount ofrunningwill reduce your risk of early death, new research has found. The research, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, contradicts previous studies that show health benefits increase the more you run – but drop at very high levels – with authors saying that running infrequently is still better than not.

‘Any amount of running, even just once a week, is better than no running,’ the authors note, ‘but higher doses of running may not necessarily be associated with greater mortality benefits.’

Researchers gathered information from 14 previous studies, with a total of 230,000 people studied from six different groups over a range of 5.5 to 35 years. While all of the studies were somewhat different – some compared running group members to those who didn’t run, while others considered people who ran once a month ‘runners’ – the team combined all the findings to come to their conclusion.

When assessing mortality, researchers looked at the 25,951 participants who died during the study. They found that runners (people who ran to any degree) had a 27% lower risk of early death from any cause and a 30% lower risk of early death from cardiovascular. A slightly lower percentage of 23% had a lower risk of earth death from cancer.

Moving on to research the impact of duration, pace and frequency, the authors found no evidence of increased benefit when it came to death from any cause. While huge benefits were found among those who ran once a week (or less), less than 50 minutes a week, or at a pace of 6pmh or less – greater levels of running led to no more benefit when it came to mortality rates.

While this research proves a happy surprise for those who only enjoy the occasional run, lead author Dr Željko Pedišić has warned that running to any degree doesn’t necessarily result in a 27% lower risk of early death. This is because the study couldn’t break down data for the least active runners, meaning there still could be a minimum requirement of running necessary to achieve the reduced risk.

More than that, while researchers accounted for age, sex, health status, weight and lifestyle Pedišić warns their findings can still be muddied by other factors. One of which could be that the runners were self-reporting their habits plus not all of the studies researched took into account other exercise.

However, he says ‘any running is probably good for your health and you can achieve those benefits by running even just once a week or running 50 minutes a week.’

‘But that shouldn’t discourage those who run more than that amount, who maybe enjoy running three times a week or six times a week,’ he concludes.

According to the World Health Organisation, there are 3.2 million deaths every year because of physical inactivity. NHS guidelines state that 75 minutes of vigorous activity a week is recommended for adults – or 150 minutes of moderate activity.

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