Elite Athletes Live Longer
It remains an open question as to why top-level athletes live notably longer than the rest of us. The point of interest is to what degree the longevity difference is produced by exercise and training versus a population bias among successful athletes to more robust individuals who would live longer regardless of their profession. That's hard to answer at this point, and is a part of broader research regarding exercise, in that while moderate regular exercise is clearly beneficial, it is unknown as to whether anything more than merely moderate regular exercise is more beneficial over the long term.
To determine whether the health benefits of exercise are actually confined (or not) to noncompetitive, moderate (or recreational) practice is of broad medical interest and might help clinicians have more evidence-based data on exercise benefits. Thus, we conducted a meta-analysis of cohort studies comparing mortality in elite athletes with mortality in the general population. We hypothesized that the overall health benefits of competitive exercise would counteract any potential detrimental effect, resulting in higher longevity and lower disease risk in elite athletes than in the general population.Ten studies, including data from a total of 42,807 athletes (707 women), met all inclusion criteria. The all-cause pooled standard mortality ratio (SMR) was 0.67 with no evidence of publication bias but with significant heterogeneity among studies. Six studies provided data on cardiovascular disease (CVD) and 5 on cancer (in a total of 35,920 and 12,119 athletes, respectively). When only CVD was considered as a cause of mortality, the pooled SMR was 0.73 with no evidence of bias or heterogenity among studies. The SMR for cancer was 0.60 with no evidence of bias despite a significant heterogeneity.
The evidence available indicates that top-level athletes live longer than the general population and have a lower risk of 2 major causes of mortality, namely, CVD and cancer. [This] suggests that the beneficial health effects of exercise, particularly in decreasing CVD and cancer risk, are not necessarily confined to moderate doses. Future studies might elucidate whether the present high demands of professional sports participation also translate into an actual longevity and health benefit.
Link: http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(14)00519-9/fulltext
correlation does not equal causation.
It could be that people who are genetically predisposed to living longer are more athletic, and not that being athletic causes longevity.
science 101 folks.
The study has a structurally flawed design. Primarily because it compares elite athletes (a preselected group health/genetically wise (you don't become an athlete if you have a generally unhealthy youth and don't have the necessary genetics and or have physiological limitations) to the general population (a non-selected health group - including those with genetic illnesses and physical disabilities limiting them from becoming elite athletes and who would likely be unhealthy regardless of their physical activity levels).
A better designed study with more revealing comparison would be to compare the athletes to a group of similar heath/age backgrounds in their youth (eliminating genetic, physically limited, non-metabolic diseases and similar 3D-BMIs in their youth) that weren't elite athletes.
If this had been done the results would likely have mirrored many other studies that have shown elite athletes actually live shorter lives with more injury/inflammation disabilities, than those individuals who have regular moderate exercise through out their lives. (http://bleacherreport.com/articles/655914-in-memoriam-50-athletes-we-lost-way-too-soon)