You want to be healthier and live longer, but finding the time to exercise can be difficult for many people. A new study, however, finds you might need just two minutes a day to achieve those goals.
“We found as little as 15 minutes of vigorous physical activity per week can lower all-cause mortality and cancer risk by 15%, and 20 minutes per week can lower heart disease risk by 40%,” lead author Dr. Matthew Ahmadi, a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Sydney, told Medical News Today. “With additional health benefits up to approximately 50 to 60 minutes per week.”
For their study, published recently in the European Heart Journal, the researchers selected and enrolled 71,893 adults from the UK Biobank, “a large-scale biomedical database and research resource, containing in-depth genetic and health information from half a million UK participants.”
All participants — who were ages 40-69 and had no evidence of cancer or cardiovascular disease — were given a wearable device that tracked their physical activity and classified it as either vigorous, moderate intensity or light intensity.
“This is one of the largest wearables device-based (studies) in the world and the first to assess the health-enhancing benefits of vigorous physical activity,” Ahmadi said.
Although moderate physical activity was described as exercise that raises your heart rate but doesn’t leave you out of breath, vigorous exercise includes “sprints, high intensity interval training, swimming or cycling at fast speeds.”
