Women who add four minutes a day to routine high-intensity activities, such as climbing stairs instead of taking an elevator, can halve their risk of heart attacks, a study suggests.
Less than five minutes of brief exercise in everyday life could have a significant effect on heart health, reducing the risk of serious cardiovascular events, researchers found. The results have been published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
Experts not involved in the study said the findings were clear evidence that getting your body moving and getting your heart rate up, even for just a few minutes a day, can make a real difference to a person’s health. healthy heart.
Longer periods of intense physical activity are known to be associated with significantly lower risks of cardiovascular disease.
But until now it was unclear whether much shorter bursts of these types of activities, which are often part of the daily routine, could also be effective at improving heart health, and if so, what the minimum threshold for measurable effects would be. could be.
The researchers said this was especially important for women who do not or cannot exercise regularly for whatever reason, as women tend to have lower levels of cardiorespiratory fitness than men at a certain age.
In the study, researchers examined the effect of “vigorous intermittent physical activity” on heart health in women and men.
The benefits of these bursts of exercise, including walking quickly to the bus, were pronounced in women – with 1.5 to four minutes a day leading to “substantially lower risks” of heart problems.
Researchers suggested they could act as “a promising target for physical activity,” especially for women who cannot or do not want to exercise.
The study used data from 81,052 middle-aged people who took part in the UK Biobank study and wore an activity tracker for seven days between 2013 and 2015. Among them, 22,368 people reported that they did not exercise regularly or went for walks alone. once a week.
Their heart health was monitored until the end of November 2022.
Women who engaged in an average of 3.4 minutes of vigorous activity daily but reported no formal exercise were 45% less likely to have a heart attack, stroke or heart failure compared to women who did no activity.
Specifically, the risk of a heart attack was 51% lower and the risk of developing heart failure was 67% lower.
In men the connections were less clear and less significant. Men who completed 5.6 minutes of these activity bursts per day, but did no formal exercise, reduced their risk of heart attacks, strokes and heart failure by 16%.
Regina Giblin, a senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, who was not involved in the study, said: “We already know that any amount of exercise is beneficial when you’re trying to reduce the risk of heart attacks and strokes. This major study proves that getting your body moving and getting your heart rate up, even for just a few minutes a day, can make a real difference to a healthy heart.
“The study showed that even just a few minutes of vigorous activity per day can significantly reduce the risk of cardiovascular events in middle-aged women who do not exercise regularly.”
For people who can exercise, however, the recommendation remained that you get at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise per week, Giblin said.