Bannister and Co ‘show extreme exercise does not shorten lifespan’

“Extreme” exercise doesn’t reduce lifespan, according to research into the lives of sub four-minute milers.

A study of the first 200 athletes to run a mile in under four minutes shows they outlive the general public by about five years.

The study, published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, included Britain’s Sir Roger Bannister who was the first to achieve the landmark feat.

It marks the 70th anniversary of Bannister’s world record-breaking run at Iffley Road athletics track in Oxford on May 6, 1954.

Prof Mark Haykowsky, the study’s author, said the findings “reiterate the benefits of exercise on the lifespan”.

While regular moderate exercise is considered a pillar of healthy ageing, researchers say it has long been thought that exposing the body to bouts of extreme endurance exercise may push it too far and shorten life expectancy.

Exceeded average life expectancy

The research team from the University of Alberta in Canada scrutinised the list of 1,759 athletes who had run a mile in under four minutes as of June last year.

They extracted the details of the first 200 to do so, on the grounds that they would be at an age that would either match or exceed the average life expectancy for their generation.

The first 200 athletes to break the four-minute mile spanned a period of 20 years from 1954 to 1974. They came from 28 different countries across Europe, North America, Oceania and Africa.

They were all born between 1928 to 1955, and were aged 23, on average, when they ran the mile in under four minutes.

Of the total, 60 (30 per cent) had died and 140 were alive at the time of the analysis. The average age at death was 73, but ranged from 24 to 91, while the average age of the surviving runners was 77, ranging from 68 to 93.

‘Nine years longer’

Prof Haykowsky said: “The analysis revealed that the under four-minute milers lived nearly five years beyond their predicted life expectancy, on average, based on sex, age, year of birth, age at achievement, and nationality.

“When factoring in the decade of completion, those whose first successful attempt was in the 1950s, lived an average of nine years longer than the general population during an average tracking period of 67 years.

“And those whose first successful attempt was in the 1960s and 1970s lived five and a half years and nearly three years longer during an average tracking period of 58 and 51 years, respectively.”

General improvements in life expectancy secondary to advances in the diagnosis and treatment of several major diseases might explain this particular trend, suggested the researchers.

They said it also likely reflects the positive effects of endurance exercise on cardiovascular, metabolic and immune-related health and function.