In good news for those who don’t like playing
sport or going to the gym, new research finds just three to four one-minute
bursts of huffing and puffing during daily tasks is associated with large
reductions in the risk of premature death, particularly from cardiovascular
disease.
Published in Nature Medicine today, the study
is led by the University of Sydney’s Charles Perkins Centre in Australia. It is
the first to accurately measure the health benefits of what researchers have
termed ‘vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity’ or VILPA.
VILPA is the very short bouts of vigorous
activity (up to one to two minutes) we do with gusto each day, like running for
the bus, bursts of power walking while doing errands or playing high-energy
games with the kids.
The researchers found that just three to four
one-minute bouts of VILPA every day is associated with up to 40 percent
reduction in all-cause and cancer-related mortality, and up to a 49 percent
reduction in death related to cardiovascular disease.
“Our study shows similar benefits to
high-intensity interval training (HIIT) can be achieved through increasing the
intensity of incidental activities done as part of daily living, and the more
the better,” said lead author Emmanuel Stamatakis, Professor of Physical
Activity, Lifestyle and Population Health at the University of Sydney’s Charles
Perkins Centre.
“A few
very short bouts totalling three to four minutes a day could go a long way, and
there are many daily activities that can be tweaked to raise your heart rate
for a minute or so.”
The majority of adults aged 40 and over do not
take part in regular exercise or sport, but Professor Stamatakis said the study
reveals how incidental physical activity can overcome many barriers.
“Upping the intensity of daily activities
requires no time commitment, no preparation, no club memberships, no special
skills. It simply involves stepping up the pace while walking or doing the
housework with a bit more energy,” he said.
What did they discover about exercise as part
of daily life?
About 89 percent of all participants did some
VILPA.
Among those who did VILPA:
93 percent of all VILPA bouts last up to 1
minute.
On average each day participants did eight
VILPA bouts of up to 1 minute each, totalling 6 minutes a day.
On average each VILPA bout lasted around 45
seconds.
The steepest gains were seen when comparing
those with around four to five bouts per day to those with no VILPA.
However, larger benefits were found with
larger VILPA amounts, suggesting the more the better.
The maximum of 11 bouts per day was associated
with a 65 percent reduction in cardiovascular death risk and 49 percent
reduction in cancer-related death risk, compared to no VILPA.
Interestingly, a comparative analysis of the
vigorous activity of 62,000 people who regularly engaged in exercise found
comparable results. This implies that whether the vigorous activity is done as
part of structured exercise or housework do not compromise the health benefits.
How was the study conducted?
Researchers used wrist-worn tracker data from
UK Biobank, a large-scale biomedical database, to measure the activity of over
25,000 ‘non-exercisers’, participants who self-reported that they do not do any
sports or exercise during leisure time.
By this method, the researchers could conclude
that any activity recorded by this group was incidental physical activity done
as part of everyday living.
The team then accessed health data that
allowed them to follow participants over seven years.
The studies are observational, meaning they
cannot directly establish cause and effect. However, the researchers took
rigorous statistical measures to minimise the possibility that results are
explained by differences in health status between participants.
“These findings demonstrate just how
valuable detailed and objective measures of physical activity can be when
collected on a large-scale population. We are incredibly grateful to all of the
100,000 UK Biobank participants who wore an activity monitor for 7 days to generate
these valuable data,” said Professor Naomi Allen, Chief Scientist of UK
Biobank.
Call for an update to physical activity
guidelines
The international team from the University of
Sydney, the University of Oxford’s Big Data Institute (UK), University College
London (UK), University of Glasgow (UK), University of Southern Denmark and
McMaster University (Canada) are calling for physical activity guidelines and
clinical advice to be updated to keep pace with this evolving area.
Current global guidelines imply that the
health benefits of vigorous-intensity physical activity are gained through
structured physical activity such as sport or running during leisure time.
It was only in 2020 that the WHO global
Guidelines on Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviour, co-chaired by
Professor Stamatakis, acknowledged that ‘all activity counts’ and the
stipulation that activity should be accumulated in 10-minute bouts was removed.
“Our previous knowledge about the health
benefits of vigorous physical activity comes from questionnaire-based studies,
but questionnaires cannot measure short bouts of any intensity,” said Professor
Stamatakis.
“The ability of wearable technology to reveal
“micropatterns” of physical activity, such as VILPA, holds huge potential for
understanding the most feasible and time-efficient ways people can benefit from
physical activity, no matter whether it is done for recreation or as part of
daily living.”
Reference:
Emmanuel Stamatakis, et al,Association of
wearable device-measured vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity with
mortality, Nature Medicine, DOI
10.1038/s41591-022-02100-x