One-minute bursts of activity during daily chores could extend your life

Summary: Three to four one-minute bouts of vigorous physical activity per day, such as running for a bus or walking briskly to complete chores, reduces the risk of death from all causes and cancer by 40%, and a risk of death 49% reduction in cardiovascular disease.

Source: University of Sydney

Good news for those who don’t like to play sports or go to the gym, new research finds that just three to four puffs a minute during daily tasks are associated with large reductions in the risk of premature death, especially cardiovascular disease.

Posted in natural medicine today the study is led by the Charles Perkins Center at the University of Sydney in Australia. It’s the first to accurately measure the health benefits of what researchers have called “Lifestyle Vigorous Intermittent Physical Activity” or VILPA.

VILPA corresponds to the very short bursts of vigorous activity (up to one to two minutes) that we do with enthusiasm every day, such as running for the bus, brisk walks while running errands or playing games at high energy with children.

Researchers have found that just three to four one-minute episodes of VILPA each day are associated with up to a 40% reduction in all-cause and cancer-related mortality, and up to a 49% reduction in deaths from cardiovascular disease.

“Our study shows that similar benefits to high-intensity interval training (HIIT) can be achieved by increasing the intensity of incidental activities performed as part of daily living, and the more the better. is,” 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 totaling three to four minutes a day can go a long way, and there are many daily activities that can be modified to get your heart rate up for about a minute.”

The majority of adults aged 40 and over do not engage in regular exercise or sport, but Professor Stamatakis said the study reveals how incidental physical activity can overcome many barriers.

“Increasing the intensity of daily activities requires no time commitment, no preparation, no club memberships, no special skills. It’s just picking up the pace by walking or doing housework with a bit more energy,” he said.

What did they discover about exercise as part of everyday life?

• About 89 percent of all participants did VILPA.
• Among those who have done VILPA:
  • 93% of all VILPA fights last up to 1 minute.
  • On average, each day, participants performed eight VILPA episodes lasting up to one minute each, totaling 6 minutes per day.
  • On average, each VILPA fight lasted about 45 seconds.
• The greatest gains were seen when comparing those with around four to five episodes per day to those without VILPA.
• However, greater benefits were seen with larger VILPA amounts, suggesting that more is better.
• The maximum of 11 episodes per day was associated with a 65% reduction in the risk of cardiovascular death and a 49% reduction in the risk of cancer-related death, compared with no VILPA.

Interestingly, a comparative analysis of vigorous activity of 62,000 people who exercised regularly found comparable results. This implies that the fact that vigorous activity is done through structured exercise or housework does not compromise the health benefits.

How was the study conducted?

Researchers used data from wrist-worn trackers from UK Biobank, a large-scale biomedical database, to measure the activity of more than 25,000 “non-exercisers”, participants who said they did not play sports or exercise in their spare time.

By this method, the researchers were able to conclude that any activity recorded by this group was incidental physical activity performed as part of daily life.

The team then accessed health data that allowed them to follow the participants for seven years.

The studies are observational, meaning they cannot directly establish cause and effect. However, the researchers took rigorous statistical measures to minimize the possibility that the results were explained by differences in health status between the participants.

“These results demonstrate how valuable detailed and objective measures of physical activity can be when collected on a large scale population. We are extremely grateful to all 100,000 UK Biobank participants who have worn a monitor of activity for 7 days to generate this valuable data,” said UK Biobank Chief Scientist Professor Naomi Allen.

Call for updated physical activity guidelines

The international team from the University of Sydney, University of Oxford Big Data Institute (UK), University College London (UK), University of Glasgow (UK) ), University of Southern Denmark and McMaster University (Canada) calls for physical activity guidelines and clinical advice to be updated to keep pace with this evolving field.

Current global guidelines imply that the health benefits of vigorous-intensity physical activity are achieved through structured physical activity such as sport or running during leisure time.

It was not until 2020 that the WHO Global Guidelines on Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviour, co-chaired by Professor Stamatakis, recognized that “all activity matters” and that the stipulation that activity must be accumulated in 10-minute periods has been removed.

“Our previous knowledge of the health benefits of vigorous physical activity comes from studies based on questionnaires, but questionnaires cannot measure short bursts of intensity,” Professor Stamatakis said.

“The ability of wearable technology to reveal ‘micro-patterns’ of physical activity, such as VILPA, holds enormous potential for understanding the most feasible and time-efficient ways for people to benefit from physical activity, whether practiced for recreational purposes or as part of daily life.

The authors declare no competing interests.

Funding: The study is funded by a research grant and an ideas grant from the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council. Individual researchers are funded by the Welcome Trust, National Institute for Health Research Oxford Biomedical Research Centre, Novo Nordisk, British Heart Foundation Center of Research Excellence, Alan Turing Institute, British Heart Foundation, Health Data Research UK (a initiative has funded research and innovation in the UK, the Department of Health and Social Care and devolved administrations, as well as major medical research charities.

About this exercise and current longevity research

Author: michelle blows
Source: University of Sydney
Contact: Michelle Blowes – University of Sydney
Image: Image is in public domain

Original research: Free access.
“Association of vigorous intermittent physical activity measured by a wearable device with mortality” by Emmanuel Stamatakis et al. natural medicine

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Summary

Association between vigorous intermittent physical activity measured by a wearable device and mortality

Wearable devices can capture unexplored movement patterns such as brief bursts of vigorous intermittent physical activity (VILPA) that are incorporated into daily life, rather than performed as recreational exercise.

Here, we examined the association of VILPA with all-cause cardiovascular disease (CVD), and cancer mortality in 25,241 non-exercisers (mean age 61.8 years, 14,178 female/11,063 male) in the biobank. British. Over a mean follow-up of 6.9 years, during which 852 deaths occurred, VILPA was inversely associated with these three outcomes in a near-linear fashion.

Compared with participants who did not engage in VILPA, participants who engaged in VILPA at the VILPA sample median frequency of 3 length-standardized episodes per day (each lasting 1 or 2 min ) showed a 38% to 40% reduction in all causes and cancer. mortality risk and a 48-49% reduction in CVD mortality risk. Additionally, median VILPA sample duration of 4.4 min per day was associated with a 26% to 30% reduction in risk of all-cause and cancer mortality and a 32% to 34% reduction in risk of cardiovascular mortality.

We obtained similar results by repeating the above analyzes for vigorous physical activity (VPA) in 62,344 UK Biobank participants who exercised (1,552 deaths, 35,290 females/27,054 males). . These results indicate that small amounts of vigorous physical activity without exercise are associated with significantly lower mortality.

VILPA in non-exercisers appears to elicit effects similar to those of VPA in athletes, suggesting that VILPA may be an appropriate exercise target, particularly in those unable or willing to exercise. .