“The top graph plots the runners’ and non-runners’ probability of not dying in a given year against time; the graph below plots disability against time. As you can see, the healthy non-runners died at increasingly faster rates than the runners and by the study’s end were about three times more likely to pass away in a given year. In terms of cause of death, the non-runners were more than twice as likely to die of heart disease, about twice as likely to die of cancers, and more than three times as likely to die of neurological diseases. In addition, they were more than ten times as likely to die of infections like pneumonia. Just as important, the disability scores plotted on the bottom show that the non-runners lost functional capacity at double the rate of the runners. By the end of the study their disability scores were more than twice as high as the runners’, indicating that the runners’ bodies were approximately fifteen years younger by this measure. In sum, running caused a compression of morbidity, thus also extending lives.”