Source: July/August 2009 issue of AARP magazine.
Findings: 40,000 men followed for 32 years. During that time swimmers had a 50% lower death rate than all others. Conclusion: Keep swimming!!
Now to find the original study ...
Original citation appears to be,
NL Chase, X Sui, SN Blair, "Swimming and all-cause mortality risk compared with running, walking, and sedentary habits in men." International Journal of Aquatics Research and Education, 2:213-23, 2008.
Link here.
Abstract
Swimming, water jogging, and aqua aerobics are lifetime physical activities that provide many health benefits comparable to those of walking and running. Research on the association between swimming and mortality is scarce, however. To evaluate the association between different types of physical activity and all-cause mortality, we studied 40,547 men age 20–90 years who completed a health examination during 1971–2003. Cox proportional-hazards regression was used to estimate the relative risks according to physical activity exposure categories. A total of 3,386 deaths occurred during 543,330 man-years of observation. After adjustment for age, body-mass index, smoking status, alcohol intake, and family history of cardiovascular disease, swimmers had 53%, 50%, and 49% lower all-cause mortality risk than did men who were sedentary, walkers, or runners, respectively (p
The study, which was done by Steven Blair and his colleagues at the University of South Carolina, used ongoing data from many decades accumulated at the Cooper Center for Aerobics Research. The demographics were probably reasonably similar to USMS male swimmers--generally reasonably affluent people who went to the Dallas center for executive health consultations and the like.
I interviewed Dr. Blair about this study for an article on swimming that recently came out in Men's Health (if you are interested, send me an email and I will send you back a .pdf of my story: jamesthornton1@comcast.net )
Dr. Blair told me he was not willing to go out on a limb and say that swimming is better for you than running, but I personally suspect that ongoing research may find this is, in fact, the case. If so, the various hypotheses I personally came up with to explain the superiority of swimming (and please remember, these are only conjectures on my part and may well be proved false or red herrings) include the following:
lower injury rate leads to more consistent training (probably some validity here)
the inclusion of highly vigorous sets (most distance runners don't do much if any sprinting at all, whereas most masters swimmers often do these)
a full body workout as opposed to mainly the legs in running workouts
exercise in a horizontal position may have some differential effects on heart beating, blood pressure effects, etc.--admittedly kind of muddled, but swimmers don't need to work against gravity, which could have some as yet unexplained benefit
exercise in a cooler environment (running, even in moderate weather, generates tremendous body heat; swimming probably does, too, but the water helps remove this more quickly than the air, perhaps allowing us to spend more energy of actual muscles as opposed to heat dissipation
I am sure there are other possibilities, too, and again, swimming superiority over other sports has not been proven by this one study, partly because the number of swimmers was relatively small compared to the runners, walkers, and sedentary subjects. Still, it is intriguing, and other research by Joel Stager, Ph.D., (a masters swimmer himself) would indicate there are definite benefits to swimming that may be unique to the sport. Again, please feel free to email me for a copy of my article. I looked on the MH website, but the piece hasn't been posted there yet, at least I couldn't find it.
Can't find the original article in PubMed (very odd since it is a 2008 study) but I would have to ask if they measured the exposure (activity) only one time or several times over the analysis period. Someone may have been measured in 1982 and said yes I am a runner, swimmer, etc and may have quit the activity the next year yet infer that activity is related to outcome (mortality). This would be misclassification bias which usually underestimates the outcome. Can't make conclusions without seeing all the methods for analysis.
It would be interesting to know which type of swimmers live longer: the fitness type, or the competitive :confused:
That's a good question. Unfortunately I don't have the reference, but several weeks ago I saw a study that showed greater benefits for high-intensity exercise (eg interval training) compared to the same volume of exercise at lower intensities (eg, continuous exrecise in the so-called "fat burning" HR zone). When I get some time maybe I can chase down the reference.
BUT...for practical purposes what I would say is, whatever type of training/exercise is likely to keep you engaged in it on a long-term basis is the best type to do.
Now to find the original study. I am interested in how a 90-y-o man could be followed up for 32 years.
Good observation. :) Perhaps backtracked for 32 years :D
It would be interesting to know which type of swimmers live longer: the fitness type, or the competitive :confused:
