Just 4 minutes a Day: Vigorous Activity Can Cut Heart Risk in Half for Middle-Aged Women, Study Reveals - Video

An average of four minutes of incidental vigorous physical activity a day could almost halve the risk of major cardiovascular events, such as heart attacks, for middle-aged women who do not engage in structured exercise, according to new research from the University of Sydney, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

“We found that a minimum of 1.5 minutes to an average of 4 minutes of daily vigorous physical activity, completed in short bursts lasting up to 1 minute, were associated with improved cardiovascular health outcomes in middle-aged women who do no structured exercise,” said lead author Professor Emmanuel Stamatakis, Director of the Mackenzie Wearable Hub at the Charles Perkins Centre and the Faculty of Medicine and Health.

High-intensity physical activity that forms part of a daily routine is known as “vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity” (VILPA). Longer sessions of VILPA are linked to significantly lower cardiovascular disease risk.

The study drew on data from 22,368 participants aged 40–79 who reported they did not engage in regular structured exercise. The data was collected from the UK Biobank, whose participants wore physical activity trackers for almost 24 hours a day for 7 days between 2013 and 2015.

Cardiovascular health was monitored through hospital and mortality records, tracking major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE), such as heart attack, stroke, and heart failure, until November 2022.

The researchers found that women who averaged 3.4 minutes of VILPA daily were 45% less likely to experience a major cardiovascular event. They were also 51% less likely to have a heart attack and 67% less likely to develop heart failure than women who did no VILPA.

Even when amounts of daily VILPA were lower than 3.4 minutes they were still linked to lower cardiovascular event risk. A minimum of 1.2 to 1.6 minutes of VILPA per day was associated with a 30 percent lower risk of total major cardiovascular events, a 33 percent lower risk of heart attack, and a 40 percent lower risk of heart failure.

However, men reaped fewer benefits from tiny bursts of VILPA. Those who averaged 5.6 minutes daily were only 16 percent less likely to experience a major cardiovascular event compared with men who did none.

Reference: Stamatakis, E., Ahmadi, M., Biswas, R. K., del Pozo Cruz, B., Thøgersen-Ntoumani, C., Murphy, M. H., ... & Hamer, M. (2024). Device-measured vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity (VILPA) and major adverse cardiovascular events: evidence of sex differences. British Journal of Sports Medicine.