: Is there concrete evidence that running during our first few decades helps with longevity beyond age 90? I love running. I run regularly and competitively. In my early years, teachers and family told me it was the best thing

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Is there concrete evidence that running during our first few decades helps with longevity beyond age 90?
I love running. I run regularly and competitively. In my early years, teachers and family told me it was the best thing I could do if I want to live long (together with good diet).

But more and more I've been hearing about the wear and tear it does to the body (not just on the joints, but also on the heart).

I think it goes without question that running keeps us healthy for the first few decades of our lives, but it seems the number of runners dying before 90 or 100 is relatively much larger than in other groups of people, for example:

In this comprehensive list of oldest surviving athletes, only 3 are runners (2 long-distance and one 400m), whereas for sports that are much less intense on the cardiovascular system we have far more. There's 27 baseball players (according to this, they barely run[1]) and 13 gymnasts. There are far more runners than baseball players or gymnasts (baseball is only popular in a few countries, and gymnastics requires training and equipment that not everyone has access to), so comparatively, more runners are dying before age 100 than average.

The other cardiovascular sports also have very low proportions of people surviving to 100: 5 cyclists, 2 swimmers, 3 rowers.

There should be far fewer world leaders than professional runners, but 17 world leaders have survived to 100 and the latest data shows only 3 professional runners. Likewise there's more professional runners than physicists, chemists or mathematicians but there's 14, 15, and 16 of them surviving to 100 respectively. There's also been 18 pianists, 36 composers, and 20 singers that survived to 100, but it seems only 3 runners.

For me and all the runners out there, I ask if there's any (credible) studies on the longevity of competitive runners? If not what are some of the scientifically accepted LONG-TERM health effects of running?

Footnotes:

[1] "Some New Yorkers walk a greater distance to work each day than the average player runs during a game, which is likely less than half a mile even for multiple home run hitters and fielders. The bases are only 90 feet apart" from this article.

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