Any amount of running linked to significantly lower risk of early death | Hacker News Reader

Any amount of running linked to significantly lower risk of early death

bmj.com

22 pointsconse_lad15 comments

An important part:

> This is an observational study, and as such, can’t establish cause. And the researchers caution that the number of included studies was small and their methods varied considerably, which may have influenced the results.

People who are sick or have other health issues will do very little running, so correlation and causation and all that.

Similar to how a low BMI has higher death rates than overweight BMI IIRC. People tend to lose a lot of weight when they are really sick.

My preference is to see what the NHS "Behind the Headlines" sites makes of such studies [1], rather than read press releases.

> The findings support general understanding that physical activity is good for health. However, this does not mean that running in itself is necessary as an activity. The comparison groups may have included a varied mix of those who were sedentary and those who took other forms of activity but just did not run.

[1] https://www.nhs.uk/news/lifestyle-and-exercise/running-reduc...

Someone more likely to run is also more likely to do a million other healthy things

I was skeptic, so I looked at the related paper: https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2019/09/25/bjsports-2018-...

It looks like a fairly good systematic review and meta-analysis. Their "Assessment of study and evidence quality" seems quite comprehensive, and they filtered out several studies affected by selection bias.

They mention the causation possibility:

> the association between running and mortality may partially be explained by assuming that sick participants (who are more likely to die) were less likely to participate in running.

Still, even if "running" isn't a direct cause for increase longevity, we can't rule out that more promotion of running would have positive effects (placebo effect, have unhealthy people use running as a keystone habit to build other healthy habits, etc).

What I'd love to see is more meta-analysis like this one for other sports. I believe that running is known for its orthopedic stress risks, and other sports like swimming might be seen to deliver the same positive effects as running, without the negative impacts.

This podcast has an episode on that study, highlighting the constraints: https://open.spotify.com/episode/67MXt1VL6BoXt0PW5i6pA0?si=G...

Medical meta study is becoming increasingly concerning. This is lazy and not very useful rubbish.

I would just take it for what it is. The sample is not that small, and there can be more things included, like people who run do other things beneficial for their health. Even so, if somebody smokes and starts running, they might quit smoking because they want a better breathing pattern and it obstructs them while running. So might that be attributed to running? Dunno, I'm not an expert. But I would write this thing off.

I would also like to see data on walking. For example people who walk regularly more than x kilometers daily (those who go to work by foot) and so on. Do other activities like the elliptical have the same benefit? I shouldn't run for any prolonged period because of ankle issues, but I can happily ride the elliptical for 30-45 minutes. I suppose the answer is yes...

> I would also like to see data on walking. For example people who walk regularly more than x kilometers daily (those who go to work by foot) and so on. Do other activities like the elliptical have the same benefit? I shouldn't run for any prolonged period because of ankle issues, but I can happily ride the elliptical for 30-45 minutes. I suppose the answer is yes...

I've been doing all sorts of cardio machines and fitness experiments, and I personally consider elliptical a meaningful sport activity (although low-effort for my personal conditioning).

Walking is very low effort overall on the body musculature and cardiovascular conditioning.

In the big picture, my biggest critique to walking is that it's associated to a checklist mindset: "I've done my 1 hour walk for today and I'm done", while doing "real" physical activities implies a different attitude - as you wrote, "people who run do other things beneficial for their health".

Entering the anecdata field, I've found that my body seems to have a threshold for metabolic stimulation - with 5-times/week low-effort 20-minutes runs (+2 weight sessions), I struggle to get to low bodyfat percentages; I need higher effort and slightly longer sessions.

While this is a strictly individual sample, I think finding one's own impact of different activity on their body is the foundation for real effect. Maybe walking works for a handful of people on earth :-)

Need multiple regression analysis to see how individual factor contributes. If running is there many others may be excluded but it is the excluded one might explain more.

any amount of running already excludes all the people who can't run. how do they control for that?

Is it supposed to be an independent variable? Seems given that people who can run are already over the hump by default.

This is a meta-analysis of many other studies of varying quality. There are many limitations, including the inclusion of a study that did not show effect , exclusion of people with heart disease problems etc. They are described in their discussion section here: https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2019/09/25/bjsports-2018-...

this seems to put a few grains of salt in this all-or-none preclamation

Hey, has anyone read the book Born to Run?

Yeah - I really enjoyed it. Takes a somewhat more humanities based approach towards describing the history and understanding the relevance of running for humans. It inspired me to get out there and put some more miles in.

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