Tiny, daily bursts of vigorous incidental physical activity could almost halve cardiovascular risk in middle-aged women

“We found that a minimum of 1.5 minutes to an average of 4 minutes of daily vigorous physical activity, completed in short bursts lasting up to 1 minute, were associated with improved cardiovascular health outcomes in middle-aged women who do no structured exercise,” said lead author Professor Emmanuel Stamatakis, Director of the Mackenzie Wearable Hub at the Charles Perkins Centre and the Faculty of Medicine and Health.

High-intensity physical activity that forms part of a daily routine is known as “vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity” (VILPA). Longer sessions of VILPA are linked to significantly lower cardiovascular disease risk. The researchers say that, given fewer than 20 percent of middle-aged or older adults engage in regular structured exercise, engaging in VILPA could be a good alternative.

“Making short bursts of vigorous physical activity a lifestyle habit could be a promising option for women who are not keen on structured exercise or are unable to do it for any reason. As a starting point, it could be as simple as incorporating throughout the day a few minutes of activities like stair climbing, carrying shopping, uphill walking, playing tag with a child or pet, or either uphill or power walking,” said Professor Stamatakis.

The study drew on data from 22,368 participants (13,018 women and 9,350 men) aged 40-79 who reported they did not engage in regular structured exercise. The data was collected from the UK Biobank, whose participants wore physical activity trackers for almost 24 hours a day for 7 days between 2013 and 2015.

Cardiovascular health was monitored through hospital and mortality records, tracking major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE), such as heart attack, stroke, and heart failure, until November 2022.

After adjusting for factors such as lifestyle, socioeconomic position, cardiovascular health, co-existing conditions, and ethnicity, the researchers found that the more VILPA women did, the lower their risk of a major cardiovascular event. Women who averaged 3.4 minutes of VILPA daily were 45 percent less likely to experience a major cardiovascular event. They were also 51 percent less likely to have a heart attack and 67 percent less likely to develop heart failure than women who did no VILPA.

Even when amounts of daily VILPA were lower than 3.4 minutes they were still linked to lower cardiovascular event risk. A minimum of 1.2 to 1.6 minutes of VILPA per day was associated with a 30 percent lower risk of total major cardiovascular events, a 33 percent lower risk of heart attack, and a 40 percent lower risk of heart failure.

However, men reaped fewer benefits from tiny bursts of VILPA. Those who averaged 5.6 minutes daily were only 16 percent less likely to experience a major cardiovascular event compared with men who did none. A minimum of 2.3 minutes per day was associated with only an 11 percent risk reduction.

Professor Stamatakis said more testing was needed to understand how VILPA may improve cardiovascular health.

“To date, it hasn’t been clear whether short bursts of VILPA lower the risk of specific types of cardiovascular events, like heart attack or stroke. We aimed to identify minimum daily thresholds and feasible amounts for testing in community programs and future trials,” he said.

“Importantly, the beneficial associations we observed were in women who committed to short bursts of VILPA almost daily. This highlights the importance of habit formation, which is not always easy. VILPA should not be seen as a quick fix — there are no magic bullets for health. But our results show that even a little bit higher intensity activity can help and might be just the thing to help people develop a regular physical activity — or even exercise — habit,” he said.

For the purposes of this story, physical activity is incidental, e.g. carrying shopping or briefly power walking, and exercise is structured, e.g. going to the gym or playing sport.