TUESDAY, August 12, (News Locale) - Doctors always advise lethargic individuals to start running to rev up their metabolism. Now it appears regular running may be the best anti-aging strategy as well, according to a study from the Stanford University School of Medicine. 

The study lasted for over two decades and tracked 500 runners 50 years old or over at the beginning of the study. Overall 284 of the study participants were regular runners, while the remaining 156 healthy "controls" were non-runners.

At the start of the study, participants ran for an average of four hours per week. By the time the study wound up, these people were in their 70s or 80s and ran about 76 minutes a week.

Reporting in the August 11 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, the researchers revealed just 15 percent of the regular runners had succumbed to the ravages of age and had died, while 34 percent of the non-runners had died during the same time.

The study's lead author is Dr. James Fries, an emeritus professor of medicine at Stanford. Dr Fries is also the author of a landmark paper in 1980 in which he hypothesized that regular running may be able to suppress morbidity. He said people who had regular exercise regimen would spend less time being disabled even as their days neared an end.

Dr Fries said exercise was by far the best thing to delay aging, "The health benefits of exercise are greater than we thought. If you had to pick one thing to make people healthier as they age, it would be aerobic exercise," he added.

Some 21 years after the study all participants experienced some amount of disability, but for the runners, the onset was delayed. Furthermore deaths from heart disease, diabetes and neurological disease were also less in the running group.

The National Institute of Aging recommends four types of exercise for seniors - endurance, strength, balance and flexibility. "Exercise should not hurt or make you feel really tired. You might feel some soreness, a little discomfort, or a bit weary, but you should not feel pain. In fact, in many ways, being active will probably make you feel better," the NIA says.

So the best advice for older consumers appears to be to put on your running shoes and start going - this may delay aging in more ways than you know.