An active lifestyle in adulthood is associated with lower health care costs in old age

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Exercise is good for your health at any age, and you can reap the benefits no matter how late you start.< /p>

But recent studies have shown another benefit of lifelong physical activity. People who were more physically active in adolescence and adulthood had lower health care costs.

These results are particularly relevant for people living in countries without universal health care, such as like the US.

“However, our results indirectly apply to countries with universal health care, such as the UK, as a healthier population can lead to lower costs for the health system as a whole.”

For our study, we used data from the National Cancer Institute's Diet and Health Study, which included more than half a million adults. In this 1996 study, adults between the ages of 50 and 71 were asked how physically active they were at that time in their lives. They were also asked to rate how much exercise they did in late adolescence and early and middle adulthood.

Adults who maintained or increased their physical activity from adolescence throughout adulthood were found to have lower average annual health costs than adults who are persistently inactive for long periods of time, from $824 (£567) to $1,874 (£1,356) per year. This is about 10-22% lower than those who were less active or inactive.

In contrast, adults who were active earlier in life but less active in middle age (declining activity levels) , did not benefit from reduced health care costs after age 65, despite being active at an earlier age.