Association of wearable device-measured vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity with mortality

Abstract

Wearable devices can capture unexplored movement patterns such as brief bursts of vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity (VILPA) that is embedded into everyday life, rather than being done as leisure time exercise. Here, we examined the association of VILPA with all-cause, cardiovascular disease (CVD) and cancer mortality in 25,241 nonexercisers (mean age 61.8 years, 14,178 women/11,063 men) in the UK Biobank. Over an average follow-up of 6.9 years, during which 852 deaths occurred, VILPA was inversely associated with all three of these outcomes in a near-linear fashion. Compared with participants who engaged in no VILPA, participants who engaged in VILPA at the sample median VILPA frequency of 3 length-standardized bouts per day (lasting 1 or 2 min each) showed a 38%–40% reduction in all-cause and cancer mortality risk and a 48%–49% reduction in CVD mortality risk. Moreover, the sample median VILPA duration of 4.4 min per day was associated with a 26%–30% reduction in all-cause and cancer mortality risk and a 32%–34% reduction in CVD mortality risk. We obtained similar results when repeating the above analyses for vigorous physical activity (VPA) in 62,344 UK Biobank participants who exercised (1,552 deaths, 35,290 women/27,054 men). These results indicate that small amounts of vigorous nonexercise physical activity are associated with substantially lower mortality. VILPA in nonexercisers appears to elicit similar effects to VPA in exercisers, suggesting that VILPA may be a suitable physical activity target, especially in people not able or willing to exercise.

The potential harms of sedentary behaviour on cardiometabolic health are mitigated in highly active adults: a compositional data analysis

“…Interestingly, Stamatakis et al proposed a new paradigm that allows VPA to be more accessible with the aid of the regular accumulation of vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity (VILPA) as part of daily living, such as carrying shopping bags and stair climbing [41]. They recently showed that 3 bouts per day (4.4 min per day) was associated with a reduction in all-cause, CVD and cancer mortality, whereby non-exercisers appeared to elicit beneficial health effects of similar magnitude to exercisers [42]. This emphasizes the potential of promoting VILPA No differences on cardiometabolic health related outcomes were found between groups, which was also confirmed by the multivariate regression analyses.…”

The Impact of Exercise on Immunity, Metabolism, and Atherosclerosis

“…The possibility to now easily detect health data will allow us to measure the effects of “easily to integrate into everyday life” physical activity. Just recently, it has been shown that three to four minutes of vigorous lifestyle physical activity (VILPA), such as very fast walking while commuting to work, is associated with lower all-cause CVD and cancer mortality risk [ 197 ]. Studies like this will help us to better comprehend “how little is enough” while still maximizing the beneficial effects of exercise.…”

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“…115 Physical activity does not need to be accumulated all at once, with findings suggesting intermittent physical activity throughout the day is associated with reduced all-cause and CVD-related death. 116 This can be important for those employed in primarily sedentary occupations.…”