Vigorous physical activity (VPA), the kind that makes you feel out of breath, is a well-established modifiable lifestyle factor, and it is known to provide greater health benefits and reduce the risk of numerous chronic diseases. The health benefits can vary depending on the context and the type of physical activity. However, and despite all the health advantages, the spectrum of these benefits across different chronic diseases and the importance of the level of physical activity vs volume (i.e. the time someone spends being active) remains unclear.
In a recent study published in the European Heart Journal, a team of researchers led by Prof. Minxue Shen and Dr Xiang Chen (Xiangya School of Public Health at Central South University in Hunan, China) examined the associations between the proportion of VPA relative to the total volume of physical activity and the incidence of eight chronic disease outcomes (i.e. major adverse cardiovascular events, atrial fibrillation, type 2 diabetes, immune-mediated inflammatory diseases, chronic respiratory diseases, chronic kidney disease, and dementia), as well as all-cause mortality.
The study included participants of the UK Biobank cohort. Of the total, 96,408 participants (mean age 61.9 and 56.3% women) had device-measured physical activity data (wrist-worn accelerometers), and 375,730 participants (mean age 56.2 and 52.2% women) had self-reported physical activity data. The team of researchers compared these measurement data with participants’ likelihood of developing chronic disease outcomes or dying over a median follow-up of 9 years (for the participants with device-measured data) and 14 years (for the participants with self-reported data).
The results showed that when people devoted a large proportion of their physical activity to vigorous movement, they had a much lower risk of developing the outcomes under study. Specifically, the participants who did vigorous activity, compared to those who didn’t, had a 63% lower risk of dementia, 60% lower risk of type 2 diabetes, and 46% lower risk of all-cause mortality, among others. These benefits were also observed when the total time spent on vigorous physical activity was small. In addition, researchers showed that VPA could potentially prevent 20.3% immune-mediated inflammatory diseases, 21.4% of chronic respiratory diseases and 32.3% of dementia cases. Total physical activity volume was associated, however, to a much lower preventive potential – only 1% for immune-mediated inflammatory diseases, 5.6% for chronic respiratory diseases and 8.1% for dementia cases.
The research team also showed that intensity played a more important role in the prevention of certain diseases. For example, in inflammatory conditions, intensity seems to be the key factor in reducing the risk. In contrast, for metabolism-related conditions such as diabetes, both the time people spent being active and how intense the physical activity was, were important.
These findings suggest that VPA may have higher preventive potential than total physical activity volume, which supports the promotion of strategies, public health campaigns and preventive clinical interventions focused on exercises that prioritise intensity rather than the amount of time being active per week. However, it is important to acknowledge the benefits of lower-intensity physical activity, and that VPA may not be feasible for everyone. In these cases, light-to-moderate physical activity can still provide meaningful health benefits.
https://academic.oup.com/eurheartj/advance-article/doi/10.1093/eurheartj/ehag168/8537159
