ATHENS, Greece— Taking a lift is a great convenience, but a new study found that it does not improve your longevity. Instead, researchers discovered that taking the stairs can help you live a far longer life. Climbing a few flights of stairs every day lowers a person's risk of cardiovascular disease and mortality, even if they have a history of heart problems.
"If you have the choice of taking the stairs or the lift, go for the stairs because it will help your heart," said research author Dr. Sophie Paddock of the University of East Anglia and Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital Foundation Trust in a media release. "Even brief bursts of physical activity have beneficial health impacts, and short bouts of stair climbing should be an achievable target to integrate into daily routines."
Although cardiovascular disease is the biggest cause of death in the United States, researchers believe regular exercise can help avoid it. Unfortunately, the new study, presented at ESC Preventive Cardiology 2024, shows that one in every four persons worldwide does not exceed the recommended levels of physical exercise.
Adults in the United States should get approximately 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise per week, according to the Centres for Disease Control. That's around 30 minutes of brisk walking per day for five days. The CDC also suggests adding two days of muscle-strengthening activities that involve all main muscle groups (legs, hips, back, belly, chest, shoulders, and arms) to your exercise routine.
Dr Paddock points out that ascending stairs is a simple and generally available type of exercise that people can perform anywhere, from their flat block to a city park. With that in mind, a new study investigated the effects of stair climbing on longevity and heart health.
The researchers acquired data from nine prior studies on stair climbing that included over 480,000 participants. These studies looked at a wide range of scenarios and made no distinctions based on how many flights of stairs individuals ascended or how quickly they walked up those stairs. These nine papers covered both healthy patients and those who had peripheral artery disease or a history of heart attacks. The participants' ages ranged from 35 to 84.
Overall, the current study discovered that climbing stairs was linked to a 24% decreased risk of death from any cause. Participants had a 39% decreased risk of dying from cardiovascular disease. Furthermore, climbing the stairs enabled these participants to avoid some of the most serious consequences of cardiovascular disease, such as heart attack, heart failure, and stroke.
"Based on these findings, we recommend people to incorporate stair climbing into their daily life. Our findings indicated that the more stairs climbed, the greater the benefits - but this needs to be validated. So, whether at work, home, or wherever, take the stairs," Dr. Paddock says.
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