People who find it difficult to find time to exercise during a busy work week can concentrate their moderate to vigorous physical activity on one or two days a week or on weekends. Researchers from the USA came to this conclusion.
The work of scientists from Massachusetts General Hospital was published in the scientific journal JAMA. The background to the question is as follows: Doctors typically recommend at least 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity per week. But how to distribute this load so that the heart remains healthy was not obvious: exercise a little every day or a couple of times a day, but actively.
“Our analysis represents the largest study to address this question,” said the study's lead author, Shaan Khurshid, MD.
Khurshid and his colleagues looked at data from 89,573 people in a prospective UK Biobank study of wrist-worn accelerometers. These instruments recorded total physical activity and time spent at various intensities over a full week.
Among the participants, 33.7% were inactive, 42.2% were physically active on weekends, and 24.0% were regularly active. active. The study found that both activity patterns were associated with similarly low risks of heart attack, heart failure, atrial fibrillation and stroke. The team also plans to evaluate whether weekend activity may be associated with a reduced risk of a broader range of diseases.