Staying active through middle-age cuts women’s risk of death in half,
Middle-aged women who exercise regularly could have a substantially lower risk of early death than those who do not, a study has found.
Researchers in Australia found that women who consistently met the weekly recommended amount of 150 minutes of exercise – around two-and-a-half hours – had around half the risk of death compared to those who were inactive.
The study, published in the journal PLOS Medicine, analysed data from 11,169 women born between 1946 and 1951 enrolled on the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health.
The women were surveyed nine times between 1996 and 2019, giving researchers data on how often they met recommended levels of moderate-to-vigorous exercise.
Official NHS guidance says moderate activity includes a brisk walk, riding a bike, and hiking, meanwhile vigorous activities include running, swimming and aerobics.
Women who consistently met the recommendations had a death rate of 5.3 per cent over the study period, compared with 10.4 per cent among those who did not.
Binh Nguyen, the study lead from the University of Sydney, said: ‘Staying active throughout midlife can make a real difference for women’s long-term health.
‘Our study shows that maintaining recommended levels of physical activity over multiple years helps protect against early death.’
The study suggested a similar effect of exercise on reducing risk of death from cardiovascular disease and cancer, though the authors noted that the results were ‘more uncertain and less conclusive’.
However, the research team did state that their study overall ‘supports the growing evidence that maintaining an active lifestyle in midlife provides health benefits’.
They added: ‘Women should be encouraged to meet physical activity recommendations throughout mid-age to derive these benefits.’
As the study was observational, the researchers cannot prove that exercising directly caused the difference in mortality.
The study’s limitations also included its reliance on self-reported physical activity and stressed that the findings may not be applicable to all middle-aged Australian women.
The NHS say adults should do ‘some type of physical activity every day’.
‘Exercise just once or twice a week can reduce the risk of heart disease or stroke,’ their official guidance reads.
It comes as a separate study revealed that just half an hour of walking a day could slash younger women’s breast cancer risk.
The findings come from a study examining how aerobic exercise affects proteins in the blood known to have cancer-fighting properties.
While breast cancer is more common after the menopause, it can be more aggressive and harder to treat in younger women – prompting scientists to look for ways to prevent the disease in this group.
Experts from Rīga Stradiņš University in Latvia studied 18 healthy pre-menopausal women aged around 41, tracking how levels of six anti-cancer biomarkers changed after exercise.
These included myokines – proteins released by muscles during physical activity that are thought to play a role in suppressing tumour growth.
They found that even walking on a treadmill at low intensity for just 30 minutes triggered changes in the blood that slowed the proliferation of cancer cells.
