‘Weekend warrior’, regular physical activity patterns both reduce mortality risk
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
All-cause and CVD mortality were reduced in individuals regularly physically active as well as those only physically active on the weekend, according to a research letter in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology.
“Weekend warrior and regularly active physical activity patterns were each independently associated with reduced risk for cardiovascular and all-cause mortality when compared with inactive physical activity patterns,” Setor K. Kunutsor, BSc, MBChB, MPhil, PhD, senior lecturer in evidence synthesis at Bristol Medical School, U.K., and colleagues wrote. “The risk reductions for weekend warrior and regularly active PA patterns were similar.”
Source: Adobe Stock
In a systematic review and meta-analysis of four published observational cohort studies on the topic, Kunutsor and colleagues analyzed the relationships between different physical activity patterns and the risk for adverse CVD outcomes. The physical activity patterns in these studies were “weekend warrior,” which is one or two sessions per week, “regularly active,” which is multiple sessions spread out over the week, and inactive.
The four studies included in the analysis were published between 2004 and 2022 and totaled 426,428 participants (weighted mean age, 44.5 years).
During a weighted mean follow-up of 10.1 years, there were 6,910 CVD mortality events and 32,328 all-cause mortality events. Each study analyzed the association of weekend warrior and regularly active physical activity patterns compared with inactive physical activity patterns with the risk for CVD outcomes using accelerometry or self-reported questionnaires.
Compared with the inactive group, the weekend warrior group had lower risk for CVD mortality (adjusted RR = 0.73; 95% CI, 0.6-0.9) and all-cause mortality (aRR = 0.83; 95% CI, 0.77-0.9), Kunutsor and colleagues wrote.
Similarly, the regularly active physical activity group had lower risk for CVD mortality (aRR = 0.73; 95% CI, 0.66-0.79) and all-cause mortality (aRR = 0.82; 95% CI, 0.79-0.84), they wrote.
In meta-regression analyses, regular physical activity and the weekend warrior pattern were associated with similar risk reductions in CVD mortality (P = .75) and all-cause mortality (P = .51).
“These findings may have implications for public health practice,” Kunutsor and colleagues wrote. “First, it further highlights the need for populations to adhere to guideline recommendations for physical activity, given the cardiovascular and survival benefits associated with these levels. Second, the similar cardiovascular and mortality benefits associated with weekend warrior and regularly active physical activity patterns may be encouraging news for populations that are unable to meet recommended physical activity levels because of their busy lifestyles.”
Collapse
Read more about
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts