A 15 minute stroll can cut the risk of an early death by more than a fifth, experts claim

A daily 15 minute stroll could lower the risk of death by a fifth, a study has claimed.

Adults over the age of 65 who engaged in a low level of exercise for 15 minutes a day reduced the risk of an early death by 22 per cent.

The study looked at more than 123,000 people for 12 years to see the effects of lifestyle and exercise on their health.

Dr David Hupin of Saint Etienne University Hospital in France found that elderly people doing less exercise than the NHS guidelines of two and a half hours a week still cut their risk of dying.

At the EUROPREVENT conference in Nice, he said: “Age is not an excuse to do no exercise.”