For the research, more than 70,000 nurses aged 30-55 and 40,000 health professionals aged 40-75 were asked to provide information on activities they did every week, like walking, jogging, running, cycling, swimming, rowing, tennis and squash.
They filled in questionnaires every two years, and included how much weight training exercise they did, we well as lower intensity exercise like yoga, and other activities such as gardening and climbing stairs.
After crunching the numbers, the researchers found that most individual types of exercise reduced the risk of death from any cause. But people who took part in the widest mix of activities fared even better.
Their risk of death from cancer, heart disease, lung illnesses and other causes was 13-41% lower than other people’s.
The research also found six hours of moderate activity or three hours of vigorous exercise was the optimum amount of exercise each week, after which the benefits levelled off.
Although the study is large and physical activity was measured repeatedly, the research does have limitations. It can’t rule out that people’s health may have influenced the exercise they do, rather than the other way round, although it did try to account for a range of lifestyle factors.