Even a little weekly physical activity goes a long way for over 60s

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-08/b-eal073115.php

Public Release: 3-Aug-2015
Even a little weekly physical activity goes a long way for over 60s
Reduced risk of death still apparent for those who do less than recommended amount
BMJ

Just a little moderate to vigorous physical activity-below the recommended amount-every week still seems to curb the risk of death among the over 60s, suggests an analysis of the available evidence published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

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Physical activity was measured in Metabolic Equivalent of Task (MET) minutes, which express the amount of energy (calories) expended per minute of physical activity.

One MET minute is equal to the energy equivalent of just sitting, and how many MET minutes an individual clocks up every week depends on the intensity of physical activity s/he does.

For example, moderate intensity activity ranges between 3 and 5.9 MET minutes while vigorous intensity activity is classified as 6 or more. The current US recommendation is for a tally of between 500 and 1000 MET minutes every week.*

The researchers looked at the associated risk of death for four categories of weekly physical activity: inactive; low (1-499); medium (500-999); and high (1000+).

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Pooled analysis of the data showed that clocking up less than 500 weekly MET minutes of physical activity was still associated with a 22% lowered risk of death compared with those who were inactive.

The more physical activity an individual engaged in, the greater the health benefit, reaching a 28% lower risk of death for those fulfilling the recommended weekly tally of MET minutes, while more than 1000 MET minutes was associated with a 35% lower risk.

The greatest benefit seemed to be among those who went from doing nothing or only a minimal amount of physical activity to doing more.

Much of the health benefit seemed to be for a reduced risk of dying from heart disease/stroke, while the reduction in deaths from all causes was considerably greater in older women than it was in older men.

The data showed that a weekly tally of 250 MET minutes, which corresponds to 75 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity-or 15 minutes a day-was associated with health benefits, added to which the first 15 minutes of physical activity seemed to have the greatest impact, prompting the researchers to suggest that this could be "a reasonable target dose."

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