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I agree. However, the headline is very misleading.
The study is not about daily amounts of activity at all, but about weekly amounts. There is a big difference. It speaks of health benefit for people who practice running for 30-50 Minutes per week. I am sure that most people in this category run 50 minutes once a week - or maybe 25 minutes twice a week, but not 5-10 Minutes every day (which would be less than a mile).
The only scenario I can imagine for running 5 minutes every day is consistently beeing late for bus or train - and the stress involved would probably cancel out any health benefits
I can attest to the benefit that once a week running has on wellbeeing - which is even more important to me than longevity, so the article has a good point in that respect.
There is nothing misleading about the headline. Yes, the study is based on a weekly minimum amount that was found to provide some mortality benefits. But how you achieve the minimum total, whether you do it daily, once or twice a week, etc., does not matter.
From the Yahoo article:
But the biggest takeaway, according to Dr. Michael Scott Emery, co-chair of the American College of Cardiology’s sports and exercise cardiology council, might be for people who don’t run or work out at all. “Any amount of exercise will help improve your overall health, particularly cardiovascular health — even just 5 to 10 minutes of running a day, according to these findings,” Emery told Yahoo Health.
and from an NBC article:
It may only take minimal activity to change the way our bodies behave, said Dr. Vonda Wright, an orthopedic surgeon and medical director for the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s Lemieux Sports Complex.
“There is a misconception that you have to be a marathon runner to have an effect on health,” Wright said. “But that is not true. It may be that a very small daily investment makes a difference — and purposeful choices.”
If you look up the abstract of the study, it actually shows that 6 or 7 days of running does (on average) not have any beneficial impact on mortality, so running daily is not at all recommended, instead running 2-5 times a week is. It seems that the strain of daily running cancels out the health benefits that you would get with moderate running with at least 2 days/week for recovery.
Quote from the abstract:
Quote:
CONCLUSIONS: Running distances of 0.1-19.9 miles/week, speeds of 6-7 miles/hour, or frequencies of 2-5 days/week were associated with a lower risk of all-cause mortality, whereas higher mileage, faster paces, and more frequent running were not associated with better survival.
What the study actually shows are the benefits of moderate running (moderate distance and speed), but what's new or surprising about that?
Samantha, I think you are confusing the 'conclusions' that first came out in 2012, which have since changed after it was peer reviewed.
From Runner's World article:
An important abstract presented at the 2012 annual meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine attracted a lot of attention because it added fuel to the “excessive endurance exercise” hypothesis that was gathering steam at that time. Now the paper has appeared in its full-text, peer-reviewed form in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, and it’s, well, quite different.
The new paper is receiving wide coverage and being heralded as a landmark study on the benefits of running. It concludes: “Running, even 5-10 minutes a day, at slow speeds, even slower than 6 miles per hour [10:00 minute pace], is associated with markedly reduced risks of death from all causes and cardiovascular disease.”
Quote:
Conclusions Running, even 5 to 10 min/day and at slow speeds <6 miles/h, is associated with markedly reduced risks of death from all causes and cardiovascular disease. This study may motivate healthy but sedentary individuals to begin and continue running for substantial and attainable mortality benefits.
and also from Runner's World:
“Running may be a better exercise option than more moderate intensity exercise since it produces similar, if not greater, mortality benefits in 5 to 10 minutes compared to 15 to 20 minutes of moderate intensity activity.”
What this study does is lower the bar down to 5-10 minutes to gain some benefits. It may not be 'optimal,' but for those that can only do that much there will be benefits.
5 min a day seems like an awful waste of running gear & laundry chores. When I run I make it worth the time & resources I'll have to spend doing the laundry. Sweaty clothes. Run AT LEAST 20 min at a time. Optimally run for an hour or more. Then the laundry is worth it.
Of course laundry is a laughable side matter. Need at least 20 min of serious cardio to see results & get benefits.
Samantha, I think you are confusing the 'conclusions' that first came out in 2012, which have since changed after it was peer reviewed.
You are right. I looked at the 2012 abstract. I stand corrected.
The thing that I disagree with is that the conclusion on the "right" amount of weekly exercise is broken down to days. It is not clear to me if the scientists really claim benefits to 10 Minutes of running each day. Or if they just show the benefits of a weekly activity level which amounts to 5-10 daily minutes on average. In the case of running, I would contest that 5 minutes running each is physically equivalent to running 35 minutes once a week. I think that it's not.
Also, I doubt that within the data sample the group that ran around 5 miles/week there were enough individuals who broke that down into daily runs of 5-10 Minutes to make a significant sample. Very few people, if any, run that way, do they?
The credibility of the "5-10 minutes a day" conclusion might be made clear in the full text of the paper, which we don't have. I remain sceptical.
Small amounts of activity add to a BIG amount of activity over time. EG: I'm in the habit of wearing a pedometer to monitor the number of steps I take over the course of a day. While this is no longer surprising to me, I usually accumulate 2000 + steps a day just doing things IN the house. Over the course of a year that amounts to just under 3/4 million steps.
Small amounts of activity add to a BIG amount of activity over time. EG: I'm in the habit of wearing a pedometer to monitor the number of steps I take over the course of a day. While this is no longer surprising to me, I usually accumulate 2000 + steps a day just doing things IN the house. Over the course of a year that amounts to just under 3/4 million steps.
Lol when you put it that way..
I used to use one, but was not sure how accurate it was
@irlinit.....They are not very accurrate. At best, they provide a ballpark estimate. I take the step count with a grain of salt. I know for a fact that my pedometer ( Digi-Walker ) which is reported to be the most accurrate pedometer on the market, undercounts my steps somedays and overcounts my steps on other days. Walking essentially the same routes on different days, I've gotten counts ranging between 22,000 and 26,000 steps. Perhaps, over the course of a month the accumulated total might be close to accurrate.
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That conclusuion is spurious at best.
Sure, 35 minutes a week is a little better than nothing, but I don't believe it's near enough to ensure optimal health, and certainly not enough for someone who wants to lose weight and/or increase their stamina.
The writer of the article made the age-old and unfortunately all too common mistake of survey analyzers everywhere, and that is to mistake "corrallary" actions for "causal" ones. This means: the article said that people who run 30-60 mins./wk. have a 30-40% less chance of heart disease. But see? That's almost certainly because these people--persons who are at least a little bit health conscience--are more likely than totally sedentary people to include other healthy actions in their lifestyles, such as eating well and getting other forms of exercise.
The vast majority of health and fitness professionals advise us to get some sort of cardio exercise for 30-60 minutes a day, four to five times a week, in order to reap maximum health benefits. This, along with a clean, balanced diet, keeping sugars, simple carbos, and trans fats to a bare minimum.
Sorry folks: there is no quickie, silver bullet to obtaining good health. Five minutes a day just ain't gonna cut it. A 165 lb. man running at say, an 8-minute mile pace (about 7.5 mph on the treadmill) is only going to burn around 80 cals. That's maybe the equivalent of one big cookie, or three bites of pizza.
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I looked at the 2012 abstract. I stand corrected. 
