If every day, for just a few minutes, you engage in an activity that makes you slightly out of breath; for example, climbing stairs quickly or sprinting to catch the bus, you are strongly positioning yourself to avoid serious illnesses such as heart disease, arthritis, dementia, and diabetes.
The key: how intensely you move
A major new study, published in the European Heart Journal and involving around 100,000 participants, showed that it’s not just how much you move during the day that matters, but how intensely. Short bursts of vigorous activity appeared to be linked to an impressive reduction in the risk of disease, particularly inflammatory conditions and diseases affecting brain health.
The accelerometer study
The international research team analyzed data from nearly 96,000 individuals in the large UK Biobank. Participants wore wrist accelerometers for one week. These devices recorded each volunteer’s movement patterns in detail, including short bursts of intense activity. Based on this data, researchers calculated both the overall activity levels of participants and the vigorous activity that briefly made them slightly breathless.
The eight serious diseases
The research team then compared these measurements against the likelihood of developing, or dying from, eight serious conditions within the following seven years: serious heart disease, arrhythmias, type 2 diabetes, inflammatory diseases, liver disease, chronic respiratory disease, chronic kidney disease, and dementia.
Reduced risk across all eight diseases
The findings showed that people who had the most bursts of vigorous physical activity throughout the day also faced a significantly lower risk of all eight conditions. Specifically, compared to those who had no bursts of intense activity in a 24-hour period, those with the highest levels had a 63% lower risk of dementia, a 60% lower risk of type 2 diabetes, and a 46% lower risk of death. Importantly, these benefits were observed even when the total daily duration of vigorous activity was small.
Greater prevention for certain conditions
The researchers also found that the intensity of physical activity played a bigger role in preventing some diseases than others. For inflammatory conditions such as arthritis and psoriasis, for instance, the intensity of the activity appeared to be the key factor in reducing the risk. By contrast, for diseases like chronic liver disease, both the overall duration and the intensity of exercise were equally important.
The body’s response
As Professor Minsue Shen of the Xiangya School of Public Health at Central South University in Hunan, China, one of the study’s participants, explained, vigorous physical activity appears to trigger specific responses in the body that lower-intensity activity cannot replicate. During vigorous activity that makes a person feel breathless, the body responds powerfully: the heart pumps blood more efficiently, blood vessels become more elastic, and the body improves its ability to use oxygen. Vigorous activity also appears to reduce inflammation, which explains why significant reductions were seen in inflammatory diseases like psoriasis and arthritis. It also likely triggers the production of brain chemicals that help brain cells stay healthy, contributing to a lower risk of dementia.
15–20 minutes a week is enough
According to Professor Shen, achieving these benefits doesn’t require great effort, just the right approach. Short bursts of vigorous activity that cause mild breathlessness — such as quickly climbing stairs, brief spells of fast walking during an otherwise leisurely stroll, or a bit of energetic play with children — can make a difference. Even 15 to 20 minutes of such vigorous activity per week, in other words, just 2–3 minutes a day, can have significant health benefits.
Personalized activity
The professor concluded by noting that vigorous physical activity may not be suitable for everyone, such as elderly individuals or patients with specific medical conditions. For them, any increase in activity can be beneficial, and exercise should generally be tailored to each person’s abilities and needs.
