The best sport for a longer life

Social interactions might play a part in augmenting the benefits of exercise.

People who played tennis, badminton or soccer tended to live longer than those who cycled, swam or jogged.

According to a new epidemiological study of Danish men and women, playing tennis and other sports that are social might add years to your life,

The study found that adults who reported frequently participating in tennis or other racket and team sports lived longer than people who were sedentary. But they also lived longer than people who took part in reliably healthy but often solitary activities such as jogging, swimming and cycling.

One widely publicized 2017 study of more than 80,000 British men and women also found that those who played racket sports tended to outlive those who jogged.

These results piqued the interest of a group of scientists. They previously had examined links between jogging and longevity and concluded that moderate amounts of moderately paced running led to greater gains in longevity than more-gentle or strenuous running.

In another study, the researchers zeroed in on 8,600 of the participants who had been part of the study for about 25 years.

The most obvious finding was that people who had reported almost never exercising were more likely than the active to have died in the ensuing decades.

The associations between particular activities and life span were more surprising.

Cycling was associated with a lengthier life span, adding an average of 3.7 years to riders’ lives, compared to sedentary Danes. Running likewise was associated with an extra 3.2 years of life.

But these gains were notably less than for playing tennis, which was linked to 9.7 added years of life, or badminton, which was linked to an extra 6.2 years, or soccer, which added almost 5 years to players’ lives.

“We know from other research that social support provides stress mitigation,” Dr. James O’Keefe, a study co-author and the director of preventive cardiology at the Mid America Heart Institute at Saint Luke’s Health Center in Kansas City says.

“So being with other people, playing and interacting with them, as you do when you play games that require a partner or a team, probably has unique psychological and physiological effects,” he says, amplifying the benefits of the exercise.