A recent study found that practicing physical activity for only 20 to 25 minutes a day may be sufficient to compensate for the increased risk of death due to a sedentary lifestyle.
The study was conducted by researchers from Norway, and was published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, and written about on the Eurick Alert website.
The results showed that higher rates of daily physical activity are associated with lower risk, regardless of the amount of time a person spends sitting each day.
In developed countries, adults spend an average of 9 to 10 hours a day sitting, often during working hours, and researchers explained that a very sedentary lifestyle is associated with an increased risk of death.
The researchers pooled participant data from four groups of people equipped with activity trackers to see if physical activity might modify the association between sedentary time and death, and vice versa, and by how much physical activity and sedentary time.
Individual participant data collected between 2003 and 2019 were drawn from the Norwegian Tromsø Study 2015-2016; the Swedish Healthy Aging Initiative (HAI) 2012-2019; Norwegian National Physical Activity Survey (NNPAS) 2008-09; and US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2003–06.
Physical activity
The study included about 12,000 people who were at least 50 years old in the analysis. They had at least 4 days of 10-hour daily activity logs, and were monitored for at least 2 years.
In total, 5,943 people spent less than 10.5 hours sitting per day, and 6,042 people recorded 10.5 hours or more sitting.
More than 22 minutes per day of “moderate to vigorous” physical activity was associated with a lower risk of death.
While a greater amount of “moderate to vigorous” physical activity was associated with a lower risk of death, regardless of the amount of sedentary time, the association between sedentary time and death was largely influenced by the amount of physical activity.
For example, an extra 10 minutes per day was associated with a 15% lower risk of death among those who spent fewer than 10.5 hours sedentary, and a 35% lower risk among those who spent more than 10.5 hours sedentary per day.
The researchers concluded that small amounts of “moderate to vigorous” physical activity may be an effective strategy to reduce the risk of death due to long sitting time, while accumulating more than 22 minutes of activity reduces the harms of long sitting time.
2023-10-25 20:42:01
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