Elite Runners Live Longer: Study Reveals Benefits Of Extreme Exercise

The finds that elite runners who have run a mile in under four minutes live almost five years longer on average than the general population.

A study by the British Journal of Sports Medicine indicates that elite runners, particularly those who have run a mile in less than four minutes, tend to live much longer than the general population. The teams of researchers from Canada and Australia conducted this study using public health data on the first 200 athletes to have achieved this feat in the 1950s, '60s, and '70s.

These findings mean that, on average, professional runners in the study lived nearly five years longer. This defies a long-held belief that excessive exercise can have negative impacts on long-term health. Rather, the study suggests that really putting a human body through its paces might actually yield longevity advantages.

Traditional theory claims that high-intensity athletes, marathoners, endurance cyclists, and triathletes are habitually putting their bodies through strenuous athletic exercise routines that may be stressful to the heart, thereby predisposing them to an early death. Such may not be the case when considering veteran athletes opposed to the couch potato, as revealed in this research.