Abstract
It is widely held among the general population and even among health professionals
that moderate exercise is a healthy practice but long term high intensity exercise
is not. The specific amount of physical activity necessary for good health remains
unclear. To date, longevity studies of elite athletes have been relatively sparse
and the results are somewhat conflicting. The Tour de France is among the most gruelling
sport events in the world, during which highly trained professional cyclists undertake
high intensity exercise for a full 3 weeks. Consequently we set out to determine the
longevity of the participants in the Tour de France, compared with that of the general
population. We studied the longevity of 834 cyclists from France (n=465), Italy (n=196)
and Belgium (n=173) who rode the Tour de France between the years 1930 and 1964. Dates
of birth and death of the cyclists were obtained on December 31st 2007. We calculated the percentage of survivors for each age and compared them with
the values for the pooled general population of France, Italy and Belgium for the
appropriate age cohorts. We found a very significant increase in average longevity
(17%) of the cyclists when compared with the general population. The age at which
50% of the general population died was 73.5 vs. 81.5 years in Tour de France participants.
Our major finding is that repeated very intense exercise prolongs life span in well
trained practitioners. Our findings underpin the importance of exercising without
the fear that becoming exhausted might be bad for one's health.
Key words
life expectancy - mortality - physical activity - endurance - lifestyle
References
Correspondence
carmen.gomez@uv.es
