Running for even a few minutes per day may reduce a person's risk of death, a new study has found.

It is already well established that exercise reduces the risk of death by helping to prevent conditions such as heart disease. Currently, adults are recommended to undertake 150 minutes of exercise per week, 75 minutes of which should be of vigorous intensity, such as running.

US researchers decided to assess whether any health benefits were achieved if less than 75 minutes of vigorous intensity exercise was undertaken per week.

They looked at over 55,000 adults aged between 18 and 100 over a 15-year period. Around one in four were regular runners.

During the study period, more than 3,400 people died, with around one-third of these dying as a result of heart disease.

The study found that overall, runners had a 30% lower risk of death from all causes compared to non-runners. When it came specifically to heart disease and stroke, runners had a 45% lower risk of death than non-runners.

Furthermore, runners lived for an average of three years longer than non-runners.

Meanwhile, the study also found that people who ran just one or two times per week had a lower risk of dying than non-runners, as did people who ran less than 51 minutes per week, or fewer than six miles.

In fact, runners who ran less than one hour per week had the same mortality benefits as runners who ran for more than three hours per week.

"Since time is one of the strongest barriers to participate in physical activity, the study may motivate more people to start running and continue to run as an attainable health goal for mortality benefits.

"Running may be a better exercise option than more moderate intensity exercises for healthy but sedentary people since it produces similar, if not greater, mortality benefits in five to 10 minutes compared to the 15 to 20 minutes per day of moderate intensity activity that many find too time consuming," the researchers from Iowa State University said.

The study also found that people who consistently ran over a period of six years saw the most significant benefits to their health. They had a 29% lower risk of death from any cause and a 50% lower risk of death from heart disease or stroke.

Details of these findings are published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

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