Vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity (VILPA) refers to brief bouts of strenuous movement performed as part of daily living, such as walking uphill or running for a bus. We find that as little as 3–4 minutes of VILPA per day is associated with substantially reduced mortality risk compared to no VILPA.
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References
Rey Lopez, J. P., Gebel, K., Chia, D. & Stamatakis, E. Associations of vigorous physical activity with all-cause, cardiovascular and cancer mortality among 64 913 adults. BMJ Open Sport Exerc. Med. 5, e000596 (2019). This pooled analysis of 11 population cohorts found that questionnaire-measured long bouts (>15 continuous minutes) of vigorous intensity activity were associated with larger reductions in mortality risk than activities of moderate intensity.
Stamatakis, E. et al. Untapping the health enhancing potential of vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity (VILPA): rationale, scoping review, and a 4-pillar research framework. Sports Med. 51, 1–10 (2021). This paper presented a framework for future VILPA research comprising the development of: (1) an empirical definition of VILPA; (2) device-based methods to measure VILPA; (3) approaches to explore the short- and long-term dose–response effects of VILPA; and (4) scalable and acceptable behavioral VILPA-promoting interventions.
Doherty, A. et al. Large scale population assessment of physical activity using wrist worn accelerometers: The UK Biobank Study. PLoS ONE 12, e0169649 (2017). This paper presents the full methodology of the wearable-based data collection in the UK Biobank.
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This is a summary of: Stamatakis, E. et al. Association of wearable device-measured vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity with mortality. Nat. Med. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-022-02100-x (2022).
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Vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity improves mortality risk. Nat Med 28, 2484–2485 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-022-02101-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-022-02101-w
