Moderate-to-vigorous exercise of 150 minutes or more weekly, regardless of how it was distributed, prevented some incident cardiovascular disease.

Many guidelines recommend 150 minutes or more of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) weekly to lower risk for heart disease, but do such benefits depend on how that exercise is distributed? Investigators used a UK data registry to explore benefits of ‘weekend warrior’ exercise (i.e. half or more of 150 minutes of MVPA weekly occurring in one to two days) by identifying 90,000 people (mean age, 62 years) who had recorded, accelerometer-based physical activity. About 40% were classified as weekend warriors, 25% were regular exercisers (150 minutes or more of MVPA distributed throughout the week) and 35% were inactive (less than 150 minutes of MVPA weekly).

In analyses adjusted for potentially confounding factors, risks for several types of incident heart disease were significantly lower for the two active groups than for the inactive group after median follow up of 6.3 years. Notably, risks in the active groups were of similar magnitude: Adjusted hazard ratios for both active groups were about 0.8 for atrial fibrillation, 0.69 for myocardial infarction, 0.63 for heart failure and 0.81 for stroke.

Comment: These results might help clinicians respond to patients who wonder if their active weekends have health benefits. The answer appears to be ‘yes,’ but with an emphasis on exceeding the threshold of 150 minutes weekly of MVPA.

Thomas L. Schwenk, MD, Professor Emeritus, Family and Community Medicine, University of Nevada School of Medicine, Reno, USA.

Khurshid S, et al. Accelerometer-derived ‘weekend warrior’ physical activity and incident cardiovascular disease. JAMA 2023; 330: 247-252.

This summary is taken from the following Journal Watch titles: General Medicine, Cardiology, Ambulatory Medicine.