For decades, Americans have got many messages about how to beat the health risks of sedentary lifestyles: walk 10,000 steps a day; do a seven-minute workout from a phone app; flip heavy tires in an arduous boot camp class.
It turns out that any and all of those tactics could work to reduce Americans’ risk of disease and death, according to recent Duke research.
The study found that even brief trips up and down stairs would help reduce health risks as long as the exercise intensity reaches a moderate or vigorous level.
Moderate intensity was defined as brisk walking at a pace that makes it hard to carry a conversation. Boosting that pace to a jog would be a vigorous exercise for most people.
In the study, researchers analyzed data from 4,840 people 40 and older who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey between 2003 and 2006.
The people wore accelerometers to quantify their physical activity and exertion. Using a national database, the researchers determined 4,140 participants were still living in 2011.
The team found that the most dramatic improvements in the overall risk for death and disease can occur with a relatively small amount of effort, and the more people do, the better the benefits.
Specifically, people who got less than 20 minutes of moderate or vigorous activity each day had the highest risk of death.
Those who got 60 minutes per day cut their risk of death by more than half — 57%. Getting at least 100 minutes of moderate or vigorous activity per day cut the risk of death by 76%.
The team suggests that their study provide good news for most Americans, because they typically get their moderate or vigorous exercise in short bouts, and accumulating 30 minutes per day may be more convenient than setting a half-hour block.
Current guidelines about exercise are issued in 2008 by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The guidelines recommend at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise or 75 minutes of vigorous activity per week, ideally spread out over several days.
Updated guidelines are expected to be released later this year.
The study is published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
Copyright © 2018 Knowridge Science Report. All rights reserved.
