Other Notable Deaths

The Baltimore Sun

Dr. Ralph S. Paffenbarger Jr., a medical professor and researcher whose study of the connection between exercise and longevity influenced the modern physical fitness movement, died July 9 at his home in Santa Fe, N.M., after a long battle with congestive heart disease, according to the Stanford University School of Medicine, where he taught from 1977 to 1993.

Dr. Paffenbarger, an epidemiologist, spent several decades studying the exercise levels, illnesses and deaths of more than 50,000 people who had graduated from Harvard University or the University of Pennsylvania from 1916 to 1950.

In 1986, he published an influential study showing that men who burned at least 2,000 calories a week had lower death rates.

Copyright © 2021, The Baltimore Sun, a Baltimore Sun Media Group publication | Place an Ad
72°