{"id":7045,"date":"2026-03-27T14:00:37","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T14:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.healthoptibody.com\/?p=7045"},"modified":"2026-03-29T11:01:30","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T11:01:30","slug":"experts-pinpoint-how-much-exercise-middle-aged-women-need-to-do-every-week-to-slash-their-risk-of-premature-death-by-half","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.healthoptibody.com\/?p=7045","title":{"rendered":"Experts pinpoint how much exercise middle-aged women need to do every week to slash their risk of premature death by half"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By CIARAN FOREMAN, REPORTER<\/a><\/p>\n

Published:<\/span>

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Middle-aged women who exercise regularly could have a substantially lower risk of early death than those who do not, a study has found.<\/p>\n

Researchers in Australia found that women who consistently met the weekly recommended amount of 150 minutes of exercise – around two-and-a-half hours – had around half the risk of death compared to those who were inactive.<\/p>\n

The study, published in the journal PLOS Medicine, analysed data from 11,169 women born between 1946 and 1951 enrolled on the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health.<\/p>\n

The women were surveyed nine times between 1996 and 2019, giving researchers data on how often they met recommended levels of moderate-to-vigorous exercise.<\/p>\n

Official NHS<\/a> guidance says moderate activity includes a brisk walk, riding a bike, and hiking, meanwhile vigorous activities include running, swimming and aerobics.<\/p>\n

Women who consistently met the recommendations had a death rate of 5.3 per cent over the study period, compared with 10.4 per cent among those who did not.<\/p>\n

Binh Nguyen, the study lead from the University of Sydney, said: ‘Staying active throughout midlife can make a real difference for women’s long-term health.<\/p>\n

‘Our study shows that maintaining recommended levels of physical activity over multiple years helps protect against early death.’<\/p>\n

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Middle-aged women who exercise regularly could have a substantially lower risk of early death than those who do not, a study has found<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The study suggested a similar effect of exercise on reducing risk of death from cardiovascular disease and cancer, though the authors noted that the results were ‘more uncertain and less conclusive’.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, the research team did state that their study overall ‘supports the growing evidence that maintaining an active lifestyle in midlife provides health benefits’.<\/p>\n

They added: ‘Women should be encouraged to meet physical activity recommendations throughout mid-age to derive these benefits.’<\/p>\n

As the study was observational, the researchers cannot prove that exercising directly caused the difference in mortality.<\/p>\n

The study’s limitations also included its reliance on self-reported physical activity and stressed that the findings may not be applicable to all middle-aged Australian women.<\/p>\n

The NHS say adults should do ‘some type of physical activity every day’.<\/p>\n

‘Exercise just once or twice a week can reduce the risk of heart disease or stroke,’ their official guidance reads.<\/p>\n

It comes as a separate study revealed that just half an hour of walking a day could slash younger women’s breast cancer<\/a> risk.<\/p>\n

The findings come from a study examining how aerobic exercise affects proteins in the blood known to have cancer-fighting properties.<\/p>\n

While breast cancer is more common after the menopause<\/a>, it can be more aggressive and harder to treat in younger women \u2013 prompting scientists to look for ways to prevent the disease in this group.<\/p>\n

Experts from R\u012bga Stradi\u0146\u0161 University in Latvia<\/a> studied 18 healthy pre-menopausal women aged around 41, tracking how levels of six anti-cancer biomarkers changed after exercise.<\/p>\n

These included myokines \u2013 proteins released by muscles during physical activity that are thought to play a role in suppressing tumour growth.<\/p>\n

They found that even walking on a treadmill at low intensity for just 30 minutes triggered changes in the blood that slowed the proliferation of cancer cells.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\nExperts pinpoint how much exercise middle-aged women need to do every week to slash their risk of premature death by half<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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  By CIARAN FOREMAN, REPORTER Published: 06:35 EDT, 27 March 2026 | Updated: 07:01 EDT, 27 March 2026   Middle-aged women who exercise regularly could have a substantially lower risk of early death than those who do not, a study has found. Researchers in Australia found that women who consistently met the weekly recommended amount<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7046,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-7045","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthoptibody.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthoptibody.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthoptibody.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthoptibody.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthoptibody.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7045"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthoptibody.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7155,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthoptibody.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7045\/revisions\/7155"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthoptibody.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthoptibody.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthoptibody.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthoptibody.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}