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A study found that an average of six minutes of intense activity per day can lead to a longer life.
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Researchers define the type of movement as “vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity.”
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Cardiologists weigh in on the findings and limitations of the study.
Not the biggest fan of the gym or of long sessions of high-intensity exercise, despite its ability to improve health? Well, you’re in luck. According to a recent study published in Nature Medicine, a few surges of high-intensity activity—not traditional exercise—can have serious benefits on health and longevity.
The study, which was published earlier this month, sought to examine the effect of brief bursts of vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity (VILPA) on all-cause, cardiovascular disease (CVD), and cancer mortality. According to the study, VILPA refers to “brief and sporadic bouts of vigorous-intensity physical activity done as part of daily living.” These bursts of exercise last for about one to two minutes long.
The study consisted of 25,241 “nonexercisers” aged between 40 and 69 who used a wrist-worn monitoring device to measure VILPA. The study found that participants who engaged in VILPA for one to two minutes, three times per day “showed a 38–40% reduction in all-cause and cancer mortality risk and a 48–49% reduction in cardiovascular disease mortality risk,” despite not otherwise engaging in exercise.
“The findings of this study are a breath of fresh air to the average individual who does not feel that they have the time to set aside to exercise,” explains Rigved Tadwalkar, M.D., a board-certified cardiologist at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, CA. “This expounds on a strategy that many doctors already recommend, which is creating a series of lifestyle modifications to improve health. In this case, parking further from the workplace to increase walking time, or taking the stairs instead of the elevator, would be classic recommendations.”
Exercise in general works to “condition the heart” thus “helping to reduce the resting blood pressure and heart rate, decreasing circulating glucose levels, and decreasing inflammation, and ultimately leading to improved cardiovascular mortality by those mechanisms,” explains Jennifer Wong, M.D., cardiologist and medical director of non-invasive cardiology at MemorialCare Heart and Vascular Institute at Orange Coast Medical Center. Previous observational trials have demonstrated the mortality benefit of regular moderate-intensity exercise, continues Dr. Wong, who states that the potential benefits of short bursts of exercise or activity are encouraging as it is, “much easier to convince a patient to do one to two minutes of exercise than to spend 20 to 30 minutes in a row.”
While the study certainly has its limitations, experts agree that the results are promising. Specifically, the wrist-worn devices pose a definite benefit to the reliability of the study in “that it’s more than just self-reported,” explains Dr. Wong. “Some exercise trials use self-reported numbers of exercise, [but] here they were using a wrist monitor to assess whether someone was really getting in increased physical activity.”
But, the study does have limitations. First, it is merely “observational,” explains Dr. Wong, meaning it is “looking retrospectively at people’s activity levels and their outcomes, as opposed to factoring out the other things about someone’s intrinsic characteristics,” like overall health or preexisting conditions. Additionally, “It is important to remember that in this study, the comparison group was individuals who reported no exercise in their leisure time, thus accounting for why the effect size appears so large,” Dr. Tadwalkar notes.
Nonetheless, the findings of this study may very well have significance in terms of prolonging life and improving health overall. If you’d like to take advantage of the study’s findings, our experts recommend implementing VILPA into your daily routine. Examples include running after your children or pets around the house, doing yard work, or cleaning your home quickly, rather than leisurely.
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