Sedentary living: It is possible to increase life expectancy by 12 years by making tiny changes in our levels of activity and diet, researchers said yesterday in Norwich.
"Small changes in activity can have big effects later in life," said Dr Nick Wareham, director of the Medical Research Council (MRC) Epidemiology Unit in Cambridge.
His team and scientists from the University of East Anglia launched a new study at the BA Festival of Science. The research will investigate why people live sedentary lives.
Sedentary living is now responsible for 11 per cent of all deaths in developed countries. Yet previous research has shown that moving from a sedentary lifestyle to just 30 minutes of light activity a day can reduce the risk of premature death by 20 per cent.
However, Dr Wareham's team acknowledged that simply telling people to be more active usually fails. Instead, the researchers are pursuing a community approach to get people moving.
The study aims to identify the "key determinants" of variation in physical activity. A novel aspect of the approach is to work collaboratively with colleagues in the geography department of the university to determine what barriers to activity are operating within the community.
Geographers will map the communities the study participants live in. The scientists will then be able to relate the amount of physical activity people undertake with measures such as traffic density, proximity to gyms and leisure centres, proximity to green spaces and availability of safe cycle routes.
"The findings from this research could be the potential for an intervention study," Dr Simon Griffin, a member of the MRC team, said.
That intervention could be aimed at government policy on transport and the provision of recreational grounds in local communities.
The findings might even inform the design of new buildings. For example, increasing the time it takes for lift doors to open could persuade more people to take the stairs, the team suggested.
The study will involve 15,000 adults aged 40-79 and 2,000 school children aged 9-10 living in Norfolk. In addition to physical activity levels and local habitat, the study will measure diet and other health factors such as smoking.
While moderate amounts of physical activity can add up to three years to life expectancy, combining activity with eating more portions of fruits and vegetables and not smoking could increase life expectancy by as much as 12 years, the researchers said.