Is objectively measured light-intensity physical activity associated with health outcomes after adjustment for moderate-to-vigorous physical activity in adults? A systematic review

Abstract

BackgroundAn increasing number of studies have demonstrated that light-intensity physical activity (LPA) confers health benefits after adjustment for moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA). The purpose of this systematic review was to summarize existing epidemiological evidence on associations of objectively measured LPA with health outcomes in adults.MethodsThis review was conducted in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. We searched on PubMed, Web of Science, CINAL, and Cochrane Library for articles analyzing the association between objectively determined LPA and health outcomes that were published up to January 2017. Data were extracted regarding authors, publication year, country of survey, study setting, number of participants, study design, physical activity (PA) assessment (type of accelerometer and intensity), health outcomes, confounders, and results (summary measures and association). A coding system was used to summarize the results.ResultsOf the 3254 studies identified, 24 cross-sectional and 6 longitudinal studies were included in this review. Most of the studies targeted the Western population. LPA was inversely associated with all-cause mortality risk and associated favorably with some cardiometabolic risk factors including waist circumference, triglyceride levels, insulin, and presence of metabolic syndrome. Only a small amount of data were available on mental health and cognitive function.ConclusionsLPA appears to be beneficially associated with important health outcomes after adjustment for MVPA in the adult population. Although current global PA guidelines recommend only MVPA, promoting LPA may confer additional health benefits.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12966-018-0695-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Device‐measured light‐intensity physical activity and mortality: A meta‐analysis

“…The subgroup analyses and metaregression analyses both confirmed that more time spent in LPA was inversely associated with mortality risks, supporting previous systematic reviews and meta-analysis for general populations. 5,8,9,47 The present meta-analyses showed progressive decreases in mortality risk as people spend more time in LPA. Compared with the lowest LPA group, the risk of death decreased approximately 35% and 50% for participants spending between 5 and 7 h/d and more than 7 hours a day in LPA, respectively (Model 2 in Table 1).…”

“…These search terms were utilized based on previous studies. 5,9 The reference lists of all selected articles were also screened for eligible records.…”

“…To date, there have been three systematic reviews examining the relationships of LPA with mortality, revealing that LPA may confer health benefits in reducing risks of all-cause mortality. 5,8,9 Füzéki et al 8 reported a statistically significant beneficial association between LPA and mortality based on longitudinal studies (n = 3) by means of systematic review instead of meta-analysis. Although the included studies were conducted using objective measures of LPA, all the data were collected from a single source (ie, accelerometer data of the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey [NHANES]).…”

“…This limits the generalizability of the findings since the prevalence, patterns, and contexts of LPA may vary across societies. Amagasa et al 9 provided additional evidence to support the benefits of LPA for reducing risks of mortality based on several cohort studies (n = 4) using device-measured LPA, even after adjusting for MVPA. However, metaanalytic techniques were also not adopted and quantification of the dose-response relationships between LPA and mortality was not undertaken.…”

Association between physical activity and all‐cause mortality: A 15‐year follow‐up using a compositional data analysis

“…10 In addition, the adverse health effects and mortality risk associated with time spent in sedentary behavior (SB), for example, activities with <1, 5 MET, has been highlighted. [11][12][13] Still, most studies have separately investigated the effect of movement behaviors such as SB, LIPA, and MVPA as independent entities, [14][15][16] and not considered that the portions of time spent on each activity represent relative information of the complete day. Recent evidence suggest that time spent in different behaviors are related, and thus, time use in one behavior also depends on the time it displaced from another The association between the composition of movement behaviors and mortality risk, acknowledging the composition nature of daily time data, is limited explored.…”