A study has shown that non-exercising adults can reap serious health benefits from increasing the intensity of incidental exercise in their normal daily routine, including reducing the risk of getting certain cancers.
The research conducted by Emmanuel Stamatakis, Professor of physical activity and population health at the Charles Perkins Centre University of Sydney, said the aim was to understand better the physical health benefits that non-exercisers can derive from vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity (VILPA).
“The large majority of middle aged and older adults, more than 70-80 per cent in most countries, are not regular exercisers in leisure time, or simply never do any exercise,” Professor Stamatakis, who is also Director of the Mackenzie Wearables Research Hub, told Neos Kosmos.
“For this reason, we need to better understand how these people can benefit from incidental, i.e. lifestyle, physical activity that occurs during daily routines. For example, during transportation, while doing errands on foot, work, and in the domestic environment.”
Professor Stamatakis said it was important to explore this area, given the practical benefits of incorporating VILPA into your routine over recreational forms of structured exercise like swimming, running, going to the gym etc.
“Vigorous intensity has many practical advantages and it is time efficient, and our program has generated some very promising findings that indicate that very small doses may be associated with substantial cancer risk reductions,” he said.
The study was done in the U.K. and included 22, 398 UK Biobank participants who had never been diagnosed with cancer before and did not do any structured exercise in their leisure time.
The participants, of which roughly 55 per cent were female with an average age of 62, were made to wear wrist activity trackers for a week to measure in high detail their activity levels throughout the day, which was used to calculate how hard and exactly for how long people in the study were moving.
Professor Stamatakis said that participants’ activity and other information was then linked to future cancer registrations and other cancer-related health records for the next 6.7 years.
“This meant we could estimate the overall risk of cancer by different levels of VILPA, the incidental bursts of activity in everyday life. We also analysed separately a group of 13 cancer sites in the body with more established links to exercise, such as breast, lung, liver, and bowel cancers,” he said.
“Our analyses took into account other factors that influence cancer risk, such as age, smoking, diet, and alcohol habits.”
The results found that 94 per cent of the individuals recorded short bursts of vigorous activity, with roughly 92 per cent of these bursts only lasting up to one minute, and they had very positive outcomes.
“A minimum of around 3.5 minutes each day was associated with a 17–18 per cent reduction in total cancer risk compared with not doing any such activity. Half the participants did at least 4.5 minutes a day, associated with a 20–21 per cent reduction in total cancer risk.”
Professor Stamatakis said that the results were stronger and the risk reduction sharper for cancers known to be impacted by the amount of exercise people do, such as breast, lung and bowel cancers.
“For example, a minimum of 3.5 minutes per a day of vigorous incidental activity reduced the risk of these cancers by 28–29 per cent. At 4.5 minutes a day, these risks were reduced by 31–32 per cent,” he said.
“For both total cancer and those known to be linked to exercise, the results clearly show the benefits of doing day-to-day activities with gusto that makes you huff and puff.”
Professor Stamatakis stressed that this study cannot explain the biological mechanisms of how vigorous intensity activity may reduce cancer risk.
He did state that previous early-stage trials showed this type of activity leads to rapid improvements in heart and lung fitness.
“Higher fitness is linked to lower insulin resistance and lower chronic inflammation, which is good as high levels of these are both risk factors for cancer.”
Professor Stamatakis reaffirmed that this study was done to see how non-exercisers can still find methods of beneficial activity, but they still advise people to find time for structured, leisure-time exercise, if possible.
“For people who find it hard to initiate or adhere to an exercise program, our study suggests that doing a few short bursts of intense activity as the day goes by may be beneficial for long term health,” he told Neos Kosmos.
“However, for regular exercisers, our study should not be interpreted as VILPA being a replacement for a good exercise program…The principle here is that the best physical activity regimen is the one every person can fit into their weekly or daily routine, and – critically – can stick to this regimen in the long term.”
