Less is More in Jogging?

Any article or news clip that I see that has the word "jogging" in it immediately calls into question the content with me.  It shouldn't.  Maybe I am a "running" snob and in all likelihood, at my advanced age, running slower than I did when I was in my 30's, maybe I am looked upon as a jogger.  But I am a runner.  There are some days when I am a walker and there is nothing wrong with that. So, I am a walker, jogger and runner.  It's interesting to read where the word "jog" might have come from.  Certainly by some of these definitions, I sometimes jog and I definitely jog with Casey boy. Running on the other hand has a much more technical description. as does walking. 

So now that we have the definitions out of the way, why did I even bring this up?  In my 4 AM morning headline review on nbcnews.com I saw a headline "When Less May Be More When It Comes To Jogging".  It is in the section called 3rd Block, short snippets of news from Brian Williams.  Of course, I see the word "jogging" and immediately think, "whatever this is, they don't know what they are talking about."  Admittedly, it is a wrong attitude to take but I had to see for myself.  He cited a study of 1000 "joggers" that those "jogging" more than 4 hours a week had the same death rate as those people who get no exercise.  The study. published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology details the findings.  Forbes and BBC summarized and added their own commentary.

Certainly the U-shaped curve is interesting.  The death rate is not any different between me and a person who sits on their couch everyday.  But, I don't run or jog to extend my life.  I run to live my life, to experience life fully.  If I die earlier than I would otherwise, well, I guess that is the risk I will have to take. The authors of the study write “if the goal is to decrease the risk of death and improve life expectancy, going for a leisurely jog a few times per week at a moderate pace is a good strategy. Higher doses of running are not only unnecessary but may also erode some of the remarkable longevity benefits conferred by lower doses of running.”  It's a good thing that this is not my goal.  My goal is not to improve life expectancy but to improve life quality.  Many people are interested in longevity of life and I am interested in quality of life.  Running affords me a high quality life.  I work in an industry (pharmaceutical/device) that measures quality of life of trial participants when doing clinical studies.  It is a primary component of any study and sometimes a primary endpoint in a study.  This begs the question, is the quality of life for those individuals in this "jogging" study different among the different groups?  I would argue that although I would not live any longer (being a runner)  than sedentary people, my quality of life would be much better, richer, if you will.  So, maybe the next study should be done in multivariate form adding quality of life (QOL) as a component.