Results of a new study find that people who live a sedentary lifestyle are more likely to die sooner than those people who live healthy.
The study which was performed by British researchers appears in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
Researchers analyzed many groups of twins, and found that those who lived a more sedentary, lazy lifestyle, had biological markers that suggested that their lifespans would be shorter than their siblings.
“A sedentary lifestyle increases the propensity to aging-related disease and premature death,” wrote lead author Lynn Cherkas of King’s College London.
“Inactivity may diminish life expectancy not only by predisposing to aging-related diseases (like diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease) but also because it may influence the aging process itself,” write the researchers.
They gave twins a survey, asking about physical level of exercise, smoking, socioeconomic status and took a blood sample.
They found that telomeres, which are a genetic sequence, decreased with age, and were a lot shorter in men and women who reported a sedentary lifestyle.
“Such a relationship between leukocyte telomere length and physical activity level remained significant after adjustment for body mass index, smoking, socioeconomic status and physical activity at work,” the authors wrote.
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