Engaging in the recommended weekly physical activity, concentrated over one or two days or spread across the week, can reduce the risk of a wide range of conditions. This is what emerges from a study conducted by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital, published in the journal Circulation.
Guidelines recommend at least 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity per week, and researchers wanted to see whether those who exercised most days of the week had more benefits than those who did longer bouts of exercise only on weekends, and in what benefits of diseases.
Information on almost 90,000 people from the UK Biobank database was analysed. Participants wore wrist monitors that recorded their total physical activity and time spent at different exercise intensities over the course of a week, based on guidelines. The team then examined associations between physical activity patterns and the incidence of 678 conditions resulting from 16 disease types, including mental illnesses, digestive diseases and neurological diseases.
The researchers found that weekend exercise was as effective at reducing risk as exercise spread more evenly throughout the week and was associated with a lower risk of 264 diseases. The associations were strongest for cardiometabolic conditions such as hypertension (23% and 28% lower risk over six years for weekend and regular exercise, respectively) and diabetes (43% and 46% lower risk %, respectively). However, the associations affected all disease categories studied.
The findings, the researchers note, suggest that physical activity is broadly beneficial for reducing the risk of future disease, regardless of when it is performed.