We can all agree that regular exercise is good for you. But does it actually affect longevity?

In a 2018 paper, U.S. cardiologist Kyle Mandsager and associates addressed this question by studying adults who had undergone treadmill testing. They tested 122,007 patients age 18 to older than 80 and then slotted each patient into one of five categories based on their cardiovascular-fitness level.

Elite performers were defined as the group that had the best results on the treadmill test and low performers had the worst results. Deaths over the following 10 years were then tallied.

As the chart shows, the risk of dying within the 10-year period was strongly linked to fitness level. Low performers were nine times more likely to die versus elite performers.

The question is whether other factors were at work to account for the stark differences in mortality rates. The researchers tried hard to minimize these other factors. For instance, each of the five groups had the same average age of 53.4. They also had virtually the same age distribution and the same percentage of males vs. females.

The five groups were not the same in every respect, though. For instance, only 28.5 per cent of the elite group were former or current smokers versus 56.6 per cent of the low performers. Hence, factors other than exercise might account for some of the differences in mortality rates.

The overall result, however, is still compelling. The high performers were not only much less likely to die, their remaining years were healthier ones than was the case for the low performers.

The take-away for retirees is that planning well for retirement involves paying attention to fitness as well as finances.

Frederick Vettese is former chief actuary of Morneau Shepell and author of the PERC retirement calculator (perc-pro.ca)