Well-being: the real secret to longevity is doing lots of different sports activities

There is a scene that most early birds see repeated every morning in big cities. To the notes of the Eagles' classic 'Life in the fast lane', an army of 'larks' put on their running shoes and start running through the deserted streets before the sun comes up. Then there are the owls, those of spinning or evening water aerobics. And finally, there is the rest of the world, who, while not falling within the parameters of the licensed 'sportsman', walks everywhere, climbs stairs, pedals to work.

For years, doctors have been imparting the mantra of 'as long as you move'. And with good reason. But now one of the most impressive analyses ever carried out on the relationship between physical activity and health adds a decisive detail to the call to engage consistently in sporting activity in the broadest sense. And the take-home message of this study published in the British Medical Journal is very clear: 'it's not just how much you move that counts; it's also how many different ways you do it'. Which is the sneaker version of the Thomist concept 'I fear the readers of one book'. For exercise to produce the best results, variety is necessary: running is fine, but alternated with weights or cycling, just to give an example.

The research, signed by Harvard University, together with Yonsei University (Seoul, Korea) and Chongqing University (China), is based on data from two monster American studies, the Nurses' Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study, which followed more than 110,000 people, all healthy at time zero, with manic precision for over thirty years. Every two years, their lifestyle habits were recorded and updated, such as how much and how regularly they exercised. At the end of this long observation period, almost 39 thousand deaths were recorded, mainly related to cardiovascular diseases, cancer and respiratory diseases.

The authors of the study therefore went digging into this mine of data, where they found very clear evidence: those who move more have a lower risk of death. Regular walking is associated with a significant reduction in mortality. Running helps. Cycling also. Racquet sports, free exercise, weight training all show a favourable association with longevity. And there is no need for extreme feats: the benefits up to a certain point grow with increasing activity, then tend to stabilise. However, the body always responds to the stimulus of movement and responds well. And so far nothing really surprising.

The real breakthrough came when the researchers stopped looking only at total minutes of movement and started to study the variable 'variety'. How many different sports activities had a person practised over the years? Always the same, or a mix?