Health Benefits of Running

If you missed the second webinar in our Autumn Webinar Series, The Health Benefits of Running by Dr Clodagh Loughrey, then here are a few of the highlights:

Why We Started Running:

According to a recent Strava survey of 25,000 runners, four themes emerged as core drivers behind why we run: health, routine, community and aspiration.

When asked what key benefits they were looking for when they started out, runners overwhelmingly picked "Be Healthier" as their top choice with 8% marking only that answer. But most runners (68%) cited a combination of reasons e.g. 4% of runners said they started running to be healthier, improve their body image and feel accomplished. Here’s the big picture:

So we want to get healthier - then how does running do that? The webinar focussed mainly on the cardiovascular benefits of running but there are many more health benefits such as reducing cancer risk, improving bone health, strengthening and nurturing mental health.

Cardiovascular Health

‘Cardiovascular’ refers to the heart and the blood vessels making up our circulatory system. This graphic from the NI Chest, Heart and Stroke association shows just how widespread cardiovascaular disease (CVD) is in N. Ireland, with 10 people per day dying of CVD, mainly heart disease or strokes.

Cardiovascular Disease and Risk Factors:

The problem we have in the 21st century is that most of us have a metabolism which evolved over thousands of generations to allow humans to survive when food was in short supply and they had to work to get it. We are very good at storing energy (in our bellies) and not so good at losing it – this used to make us more likely to survive, but now it causes diseases of circulation, a major cause of death in modern society.

So what is your risk of cardiovascular disease which may ultimately lead to a heart attack or stroke? The following risk factors are modifiable, meaning you as an individual can do something to about these conditions:

• High Blood Pressure

• High Cholesterol

• Diabetes

• Obesity

• Smoking

The following are non-modifiable but still contribute very significantly to your risk of CVD:

• Genes

• Gender

• Age

How Running helps prevent heart disease:

• It helps with weight management (in conjunction with addressing excess calorie intake)

• Even without weight loss, running:

  • increases sensitivity to insulin therefore improving or preventing type 2 diabetes

  • lowers blood pressure

  • lowers cholesterol

  • improves the maximal oxygen uptake or VO2 max, the maximum amount of oxygen your body can utilize during exercise

  • lowers the resting heartrate

but the health gains are even greater if an overweight person loses weight.

Comparison of types of physical activity and the associated health benefits:

MET = Metabolic Equivalent Task, sitting watching TV has a MET of 1.0

So Why Run?

Not only is running very beneficial to our health but these benefits are very accessible. No expensive gym membership is needed and we don’t need expensive equipment, although we would recommend a good pair of running shoes (see our website runni.org for advice on running footwear). We don’t even need to drive to run, we can just step out our front door, so it is climate-friendly too. We can fit running around our own schedule and where many of us are time-poor it is not necessary to go for long, intensive runs all the time, in fact the evidence of benefit is greatest for moderate distance and pace.

How much running do I need to do to gain these benefits?

A Journal of the American Medical Association study in 2014 found that even 5-10 minutes of low intensity running daily can extend life by several years. 55,000 people aged 18-100 were surveyed 25% of whom were runners. Over 15 years, running up to 50 mins/week, runners were much less likely to die from heart disease, in fact less likely to die of anything.

So whereas a little running is great… a bit more is probably better.

Another study by the Copenhagen Heart Study (2013) showed the lowest mortality rate was at the slow/moderate pace 5-6 miles per hour (still sustained vigorous activity) with between 1 – 2.5 hours/week in total. No benefit demonstrated (in this study) from running more than 3 times per week.

Run once/week for 50 min (or 7 minutes every day) to live longer. 

Another more recent very large study led by Zeljko Pedisic (follow him on Twitter for much more insight) showed that running once per week for 50 mins at 5.9 miles/hour will reduce your risk of death from cardiovascular disease by 30% and reduce your risk of death from cancer by 23%, and an increase in amount or speed of running did not reduce the risk further.

The Benefits: