Short and intense daily activities: 5 minutes a day are enough to cut cardiovascular risks

However, among those who do not train regularly there are activities, such as take the stairs at a certain pace And take a nice, brisk walkwhich can make a difference. Even if they are carried out for a few minutes a day. This is explained by a recent study published in British Journal of Sports Medicinewhich analyzed the data of over 22 thousand patients, approximately 9,300 men and 13 thousand women between the ages of 40 and 79, who had indicated in the recruitment questionnaires do not exercise regularly. What comes out of it is that even the exercise so to speak irregular, occasional, daily, let’s call it what we want and as we have seen on other occasions, it can make its contribution in the prevention of cardiovascular diseases.

The survey monitored these 22 thousand volunteers thanks to a wearable device with which their daily physical activity was tracked between 2013 and 2015. Subsequently, their health conditions were recorded and considered by the survey until November 2022, with a significant follow-up of almost 8 yearsobviously keeping under control in particular the so-called serious adverse cardiovascular events, a label which includes heart attacks of various kinds, strokes, heart failure and of course the deaths connected to them. These occurred in the group involved 819.

The survey considered activities such as climbing stairs quickly, walking at an equally fast pace, small sprints that we often don’t realize like those we do to get on a subway carriage at the last minute or do household chores with a a certain haste and, therefore, with a certain vigor. Of these and dozens of other activities, it seems enough 3-4 minutes a day to cut the chances of a cardiovascular problem by 45%. But in women. The risk of myocardial infarction also fell by 51% if one engages in these short but intense activities and the risk of developing heart failure by 67%. Even less than two minutes a day had some effectwith a 40% drop in cardiovascular risk. Naturally, for those who practice a sport or are generally particularly active, this type of minimal daily activity makes no difference.

The curious aspect is that these benefits they were not found to be as significant in men: 5-6 minutes of this type of physical activity resulted in just 16% less likelihood of suffering a serious event compared to those who did nothing remotely aerobic at all. And therefore with 2-3 minutes it dropped to a meager 11%.

“Making short sessions of intense physical activity a lifelong habit could become an interesting option for women who don’t like to play a sport in a structured way or don’t have the time to do it,” she explained Emmanuel Stamatakislead author of the study and lecturer at the University of Sydney. «There is no magic bullet for health, this should not be seen as a quick fix to maintain good cardiovascular health, however our results show that some high intensity activity may be the right way to help people to develop regular physical activity or even the habit of physical exercise.”

In short, what comes out of the work – titled Device-measured vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity (VILPA) and major adverse cardiovascular events: evidence of sex differences – it is precisely that this type of daily activity could have some role in the prevention of major cardiovascular events in women who are unable or unwilling to participate in formal exercises. For men, however, in addition to these activities which also produce little return, it could be useful to engage in some structured and intense exercise to multiply the benefits with relatively little effort or commitment.