Want to live longer and be healthier? Start running.

A U.S. study published on Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine shows middle-aged members of a runner's club were 50 percent as likely to die over a 20-year period as people who did not run.

"At 19 years, 15 percent of runners had died compared with 34 percent of controls," Dr. Eliza Chakravarty and colleagues wrote in the study.

A survey of 284 members of a nationwide running club and 156 similar, healthy people as controls was conducted by researchers. They all came from Stanford University's faculty and staff and had similar social and economic backgrounds, and all were 50 or older.

Most of the volunteers did some exercise, but runners exercised as much as 200 minutes a week, compared to 20 minutes for the non-runners.

The study also showed that people cannot use the risk of injury as an excuse not to run -- the runners had fewer injuries of all kinds, including to their knees.

(Agencies August 12, 2008)