A long-term research study investigating the independent and joint effects that exercise and diet have on a participant’s risk of death has shown that the detrimental effect a low-quality diet has on a person’s health and fatality risk cannot be eliminated by high levels of exercise.
The study by the University of Sydney, which followed a large-scale medical cohort of 360,600 British adults who all had common characteristics, found that participants who exercised well and ate a good diet had a lower risk of death than those who did neither or only one.
In comparison to those who did not exercise and ate a nutritionally deficient diet, the participants that ate a high-quality diet and engaged in active physical activity significantly lowered their risk of death. For these participants, the risk of death from all causes was lowered by 17 percent, and, in the case of cancer and cardiovascular disease, the risk of dying was lowered by 27 and 19 percent, respectively….