A short walk a day protects our health. This is one of the findings of a large study on exercise, disease risk and mortality. In particular, 11 minutes of walking a day reduces the risk of premature death by 23%.

A study published in British Journal of Sports Medicine, analyzed data from over 30 million people looking for a correlation between how much we move and how much longer and better we live. Bottom Line: Even small amounts of daily exercise reduce the risk of heart disease and some cancers.

One of the findings, which is expected to inspire more people to incorporate walking into their lives, is that at least one in ten premature deaths could be avoided if many of us walked a little more.

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Exercise reduces the incidence of heart disease by 17% and cancer of any kind by 7%.

For years, health organizations in the US, Canada, Europe, and others have recommended that anyone who is physically capable of exercising should get a total of 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week (light exercise means brisk walking or similar exercise that increases heart rate). and breathing to such an extent that speech becomes difficult). In practical terms, for most people, this means a half-hour walk five days a week. However, most of us do not keep up with this time, according to the latest data, which shows that only 47% of American adults exercise with this frequency.

This disappointing figure has prompted researchers to try to gather evidence of how even less time spent exercising affects our health. So scientists from the universities of Cambridge, Belfast and others pooled the results of 196 previous studies covering 30 million cases to see if even half the time could have a positive effect.

The results were very encouraging. Men and women who exercised for just 75 minutes of moderate exercise a week, or about 11 minutes a day, were 23 percent less likely to die prematurely from any cause than people who exercised even less.

Those 11 minutes of daily exercise also reduced the risk of heart disease by 17% and cancer of any kind by 7%. For some cancers, including myeloid leukemia, myeloma, and some stomach cancers, the risk has been reduced by 26%.

“It was already known that exercise helped,” one of the researchers says, adding, “We found that getting out of your chair is the most important thing, even if we’re exercising half the recommended amount.”