Link found between body size, physical activity, sex, life expectancy
A person’s body size, physical activity and sex were associated with the possibility that person reached 90 years of age, according to findings recently published in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.
“Most of the current longevity studies investigated men only, or combined both sexes,” Lloyd Brandts, PhD candidate, and Piet A. van den Brandt, professor in the department of epidemiology at Maastricht University Medical Centre in The Netherlands, wrote.
“However, men and women follow different survival patterns, which may be determined by differences in hormones, genetics and/or lifestyle. Therefore, it would be interesting to investigate the relation between BMI and physical activity, and longevity separately for men and women,” they added.
Brandts and van den Brandt analyzed data from a previously existing cohort of 5,479 Dutch residents born in either 1916 or 1917. This cohort also completed a questionnaire in 1986 and then was followed until they turned 90 years or passed away.
They found that women who were still alive at 90 years tended to be taller, weighed less in 1986, and gained less weight since turning 20 years of age. Such associations were not found in men.
They also found that men who engaged in physical activity for more than 90 minutes a day were 39% more likely to reach 90 years than those who were active for less than 30 minutes. Each additional 30 minutes of daily physical activity the men participated in led to a 5% increase in the likelihood of reaching 90 years. Such associations were not found in women.
Brandts and van den Brandt discussed how some of their findings relate to prior research.
“Although it is still unclear whether height and longevity are associated, our results indicate that the underlying mechanisms may differ by sex. We can only speculate as to why height is differentially associated with reaching longevity between men and women in our study. Maybe, the observed relationship is related to shrinkage, which is more common in women during aging. However, no data were available to further investigate this relationship,” they wrote.
The findings are based on large numbers of people close to the same age and one of only several studies that distinguished between the lifestyle factors that could be linked to long life between men and women, strengthening the current study’s results, according to a press release. – by Janel Miller
Disclosures: The authors report no relevant financial disclosures.