The surprisingly big health benefits of just a little exercise

"Existing guidelines from most national and global health organizations call for at least 150-300 minutes of moderate physical activity each week, or 75-150 minutes of vigorous activity, for healthy adults, sometimes alongside activities to strengthen muscle and bone. Although those guidelines remain good goals to aim for, newer studies suggest that meaningful health benefits emerge with much less exercise. Researchers are getting a clearer understanding of the bare minimum amount of exercise needed for health gains thanks to data from wearable devices."

"These can provide more-reliable measurements than do self-reported data, which form much of the basis for current guidelines. By incorporating wearables into study design, researchers can collect accurate data on physical activity minute by minute, says I-Min Lee, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts. "And this is when we start to see that even low levels of physical activity are helpful," she says."

"These data are redefining what counts as physical activity and could push future recommendations towards lower targets. But a potential shift in guidelines needs to be considered carefully in terms of the message it might send, says Emmanuel Stamatakis, a researcher specializing in physical activity and population health at the University of Sydney, Australia. No one wants to suggest that people shouldn't strive to move more, especially when an estimated 31% of people worldwide don't meet existing recommendations, and physical inactivity contributes to health problems such as obesity and heart disease."

Most national and global health organizations recommend 150–300 minutes of moderate activity or 75–150 minutes of vigorous activity weekly, often plus muscle- and bone-strengthening exercises. Wearable-device data show that meaningful health benefits can begin at far lower volumes of activity than those targets. Wearables deliver minute-by-minute, more reliable measurements than self-reported data and reveal benefits from even low-intensity movement. Any move to lower guideline targets should balance easier accessibility with the risk of reducing motivation to increase activity, especially given that roughly 31% of people worldwide do not meet current recommendations and inactivity raises cardiovascular and obesity risks.

Read at Nature