Can Walking few Minutes a Day reduce Mortality and make you Healthier?

A research team led by Dr. Alpa Patel says "yes". They Examined 140,000 adults from united states in the cancer prevention study II nutrition cohort (62,178 men with mean age 70.7 years and 77,077 women with mean age 68.9 years) who were followed up for 13 years (1999–2012).

According to the study, even walking 3 - 5 hours a week can reduce cardiovascular mortality by 20%. Those who walked more than 6 hours showed 35% reduced mortality from respiratory diseases.

It was a common thought that moderate or vigorous-intensity physical activity is needed to achieve health benefits of exercise. But this study points out even 30 mins of walking a days could make you healthier and live longer.

The major weakness of the study was that, it has looked into a population with mean age of 70 years. So generalization of this data to a younger population may not give the same results.

Developing an appetite for physical activity should be started from a young age, as it will be more of a habit than a forced activity.

This is Pitawala 'Pathana', a unique grassland found in the Knuckles Conservation Forest, Sri Lanka.