A major meta-analysis of 85 studies involving 7 million people worldwide has found that regular aerobic exercise — the kind that increases heart and breathing rates — can reduce the risk of early death from all causes by as much as 40%.
“Physical activity may be even more important for long-term health than we previously thought,” said coauthor Gregore Mielke, senior lecturer at the University of Queensland.
Age was not a limiting factor. Public health PhD student Ruyi Yu noted that older adults benefited even more, with an added 10–15% risk reduction due to pre-existing health issues.
“This highlights that it is never too late to start being physically active,” Mielke emphasized.
Published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, the study is the most comprehensive long-term analysis to date. It tracked exercise habits across multiple stages of life, showing how consistency, late starts, or interruptions affected mortality risk.
Using WHO guidelines, the study defined adequate exercise as 150–300 minutes of moderate-intensity or 75–150 minutes of vigorous-intensity activity weekly.
The most notable benefit was a 40% reduction in cardiovascular disease deaths, while cancer mortality dropped by 25%.
Exercising 300 minutes per week brought the greatest longevity gains. Even previously sedentary people who began regular activity reduced early death risk by 22%. Leisure-time exercise brought a 27% drop.
However, those who stopped exercising lost those benefits, reverting to risk levels similar to inactive individuals.
Even sub-guideline activity levels provided benefits, so people are encouraged to “move in whatever way works.”
For beginners, experts recommend starting with brisk walks of 30 minutes daily, then gradually adding resistance training for greater impact.
