Climbing stairs boosts health (Image: Getty)
It’s no longer a flight of fancy, after a university professor revealed how simple daily exercise like climbing the stairs adds years to your lifespan.
Lennert Veerman, professor of public health at Griffith University’s school of medicine and dentistry in Australia, claims exercise is like a ‘longevity jab’ and by boosting physical activity we can gain as much as 11 years to our lives.
Professor Veerman’s study, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, says even the less active middle-aged could add six hours of life expectancy for each one-hour daily walk.
Using fitness tracker data from over 35,000 people, he found the effects of exercise on longevity – calculated using markers such as lowered blood sugar, stress, blood pressure and bad cholesterol levels – about twice as strong as had previously thought.
The highly active, amassing over 160 minutes of daily movement, were at a 73 per cent lower risk of premature death than those who only managed an average 49 minutes of activity each day.
And one of Professor Veerman’s activity maxims is “to take the stairs every time” and to walk up them with gusto and effort.
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He said: “It can be any type of exercise but the biggest benefits come with roughly the equivalent of just under three hours of walking per day.
“Physical activity, not just hard exercise, lowers blood pressure, which reduces risks of heart disease and stroke and other cardiovascular disease.
“It can reduce stress levels, which may improve immune responses, and it improves mood, which may prevent suicide and coping with the use of alcohol and other drugs, which have knock-on effects on health behaviours.”
He also says we do not necessarily need to hit the gym, run marathons or even do a weekly 5km Parkrun to extend our lives.
All types of activity, including the incidental movement we clock up throughout the day, has been “vastly underestimated”, Professor Veerman says, yet it is “enormously powerful” in boosting health outcomes.
He added: “Our figures are based on time spent doing ‘walking equivalents’ so it could be any movement — whatever made the hip-worn accelerometer or tracker tick, if you will.
“That’s not limited to what we think of as ‘exercise’ — activity done for health reasons — but walking to the bus stop, pottering around the house. Everything counts.
“My main message is that any activity will make a massive difference, and the first steps give you the most benefit. If you’re currently doing very little, just a bit more activity will bring very attractive benefits that might help you live longer.”
Using the stairs is always a good option (Image: Getty)
The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends adults get at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise a week — or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise.
Sedentary lifestyles in the UK, with Brits spending their workhours deskbound, then sitting in a train or car on their way home to sit down in front of the TV, have been estimated to kill thousands each year.
One 2019 estimate put the annual death toll at 70,000 people a year with the health issues caused costing the NHS £700million each year to treat.
A 2023 paper published in Atherosclerosis journal found marching up and down more than five flights of stairs a day was associated with better blood sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol levels – and other risk factors for heart disease.
While this year Dr Sophie Paddock, of the University of East Anglia, told the European Society of Cardiology conference that frequent stair climbing gives a longer life.
Her review of nine studies, involving nearly half a million participants, showed stair climbing is linked with a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease and stroke, and a 24 per cent reduced risk of dying early from any cause.
She said: “Our study suggested that the more stairs climbed, the greater the benefits — although this needs to be confirmed. So, whether at work, home or elsewhere, take the stairs.”