At least 150 minutes of weekly physical activity cuts risk for death
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Healthy adults who reported long-term, guideline-recommended moderate or vigorous physical activity were less likely to die of any cause during decades of follow-up compared with those reporting no exercise, data show.
The 2018 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans recommend a minimum of 150 to 300 minutes per week of moderate physical activity, 75 to 150 minutes per week of vigorous physical activity or an equivalent combination of both. However, it remains unclear whether higher levels of long-term levels of moderate or vigorous physical activity are, independently and jointly, associated with lower mortality, researchers wrote in Circulation.
“The potential impact of physical activity on health is great, yet it remains unclear whether engaging in high levels of prolonged, vigorous or moderate intensity physical activity above the recommended levels provides any additional benefits or harmful effects on cardiovascular health,” Dong Hoon Lee, ScD, MS, a research associate in the department of nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said in a press release. “Our study leveraged repeated measures of self-reported physical activity over decades to examine the association between long-term physical activity during middle and late adulthood and mortality.”
Lee and colleagues analyzed data from 116,221 adults from the Nurses’ Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study, in which researchers assessed self-reported leisure-time physical activity via questionnaires, repeated up to 15 times during follow-up. The mean age of participants during follow-up was 66 years; mean BMI was 26 kg/m2 and most participants were white. Participants were free of chronic diseases at baseline. Researchers estimated HRs for the association between long-term leisure-time physical activity intensity and all-cause and cause-specific mortality.
During 30 years of follow-up, 47,596 participants died.
Compared with participants who reported no vigorous physical activity, those who met long-term leisure-time vigorous physical activity guidelines of 79 to 149 minutes per week were 19% less likely to die of any cause (HR = 0.81; 95% CI, 0.76-0.87), 31% less likely to die of CVD (HR = 0.69; 95% CI, 0.6-0.78) and 15% less likely to die of non-CVD causes (HR = 0.85; 95% CI, 0.79-0.92), according to the researchers.
Similarly, compared with participants who reported no long-term leisure-time moderate physical activity, those who met guidelines of 150 to 299 minutes per week were at 19% to 25% lower risk for all-cause, CV and non-CVD mortality.
Compared with participants who did meet long-term leisure-time physical activity guidelines, those who reported two to four times above the recommended minimum of long-term leisure-time vigorous physical activity, defined as 150 to 299 minutes per week, or moderate physical activity, defined as 300 to 599 minutes per week, had 2% to 4% and 3% to 13% lower mortality, respectively.
The researchers noted that the findings support current physical activity guidelines.
“Our study provides evidence to guide individuals to choose the right amount and intensity of physical activity over their lifetime to maintain their overall health,” Lee said in the release. “Our findings support the current national physical activity guidelines and further suggest that the maximum benefits may be achieved by performing medium to high levels of either moderate or vigorous activity or a combination.”
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