Walking can save 37,000 lives each year

Over 37,000 lives could be saves each year in England if people engaged in just two and half hours of walking or cycling each week.

This is according to Macmillan Cancer Support and walking charity the Ramblers.

A study by the bodies found that 17 per cent of all death in the UK are caused by people not being physically active enough.

They say that 150 minutes of moderate exercise a week can lower stress levels and potentially had an extra five years to a person's life expectancy.

On top of that, the charity's claim it can prevent 7,000 cases of breast cancer, 5,000 cases of bowel cancer and 295,000 cases of diabetes as well as lower emergency treatments for people with heart complaints by 12,000 per annum.

Ciaran Devane, chief executive of Macmillan Cancer Support, referred to inactivity as a "nationwide epidemic" and stated that people need to tackle it before it's "too late".

He added: "Health care professionals need to ensure that they prescribe physical activity, such as walking, as an intrinsic part of a healthy lifestyle."

In the foreword to the study, Kevin Fenton, director of health and wellbeing at Public Health England, said that 61 per cent of adults and 30 per cent of children in the UK are now considered to be overweight or obese.

This issue, he added, is costing the economy upwards of £10 billion a year in additional health care expenses.

Last week, joint research from the London School of Economics, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute at Harvard Medical School and Stanford University School of Medicine found that regular exercise can be as beneficial as medications for people that are recovering from cardiac conditions.

They looked at trials involving almost 340,000 people to compare the benefits exercise has when it comes to preventing premature death and compared the results against figures for medications.

Exercise was found to be as beneficial as a number of drugs given to those with cardiac issues and even outperformed some stroke medications.

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