Regular exercise is a key part of living longer — it not only keeps the body fit, but lowers the risk of heart disease, helps prevent cancer and slows brain aging.

Any physical activity that replaces sedentary time is good for health, but which sport adds the most years to life expectancy?

For Dan Buettner, a journalist who studies longevity in the “Blue Zones” — places around the world where he’s found people live extraordinarily healthy long lives — the answer is pickleball.

“You want to live longer? Pick up one of these,” he said in a post on Instagram this week, holding up a pickleball racquet.

The popular sport has been described as a combination of tennis, badminton and pingpong.

Buettner pointed to research that found racquet sports like pickleball appear to add the most years to life expectancy.

Tennis players, for example, live almost 10 years longer than people who are sedentary — the biggest life expectancy boost linked with a sport, a study published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings found.

Tennis beat soccer, cycling, swimming and jogging when it came to living longer, though researchers don’t know if it actually caused the longevity boost, or whether people who play tennis are already fit and lead a healthy lifestyle.

Tennis offers a “well-rounded combination of physical, mental and social advantages” that contribute to a long, healthy life, Dr. Elan Goldwaser, a sports medicine physician at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York, previously told TODAY.com.

It works the entire body, is good for the heart, and boosts mental health because it’s social and often played outside, he noted.

Pickleball benefits

The Mayo Clinic study didn’t look at pickleball specifically, but Goldwaser said many of the benefits apply to pickleball as well, though it’s not as challenging and doesn’t require the same aerobic intensity as tennis since the court is smaller.

But for Buettner, pickleball was tops.

“Why? It’s a racquet sport, but because it’s also easy to learn and it’s consummately social,” he said.

“You can’t help but meet people when you get on the pickleball court. It’s regular. It’s something you can do every day. It’s something that’s available to just about anybody for very cheap.”

Pickleball has exploded in popularity in the U.S. and has been described as “the fastest-growing sport in America,” according to USA Pickleball, the national governing body for the sport.

More than 13 million people play pickleball in the U.S., with experts calling it an “approachable sport” that improves agility, muscular endurance and hand-eye coordination. It’s low impact on the knees and joints, while helping players get a good aerobic workout and burn calories.

Players say it’s both beginner friendly and quick-moving for people who are advanced.

It’s also become an “obsession” for some, with one woman describing her husband as “addicted” to the sport.

“It’s just sort of an easy, accessible, fun, lighthearted sport to play, and you can play it at any age,” TODAY’s Savannah Guthrie said when she and the other anchors got together to play pickleball.