Objective

The proportion of healthy years lost due to disease rapidly increased with age. It is well established that regular physical activity is an efficient strategy for successful aging. However, less than 50% are able to achieve the 150 min of moderate and vigorous physical activity (MVPA) per week. The prescription of physical activity for older adults needs to be clarified.

Material/patients and methods

A French cohort of 1011 subjects aged 65 and an international cohort of 122,417 subjects aged 60 (meta-analysis) were followed over a period of 12 and 10 years. Risk ratios of death were established into four doses based on weekly MET-minutes, defined as inactive (reference), low (1–499), medium (500–999) or high (≥ 1000).

Results

Based on the dose–response relationship between physical activity and mortality, these two studies demonstrated that a dose two times lower than current recommendations, brought further benefits in older adults (RR = 0.78 [95% CI: 0.71 to 0.87], P < 0.0001 for the low dose, RR = 0.72 [95% CI: 0.65 to 0.80], P < 0.0001 for the medium dose and RR = 0.65 [95% CI: 0.61 to 0.70], P < 0.0001 for the high dose).

Discussion–conclusion

Fifteen min per day (or 75 min a week) of MVPA could be a reasonable target dose in older adults. If more may be better, “Even a little is already good”.