Women who add four minutes a day of high-intensity routine activities such as climbing the stairs instead of taking a lift could halve their risk of heart attacks, a study suggests.
Less than five minutes of brief bouts of exertion in everyday life could have a significant effect on heart health, reducing the risk of serious cardiovascular events, researchers found. The results were published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
Experts not involved with the study said the findings were clear evidence that getting your body moving and raising your heart rate even just for a few minutes daily can really make a difference to having a healthy heart.
Longer bouts of high-intensity physical activity are well-known to be associated with significantly lower risks of cardiovascular disease.
But until now it was unclear if much shorter bursts of this type of activity, which are often part of a daily routine, may also be effective at boosting heart health, and if so, what the minimum threshold for measurable effects might be.
The researchers said this was particularly important for women who don’t or can’t exercise regularly, for whatever reason, because women tended to have a lower level of cardiorespiratory fitness than men at any given age.
In the study, researchers examined the effect of “vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity” on heart health in women and men.
The benefits of these bursts of effort, which could include walking quickly for the bus, for example, were pronounced in women – with 1.5 to four minutes a day leading to “substantially lower risks” of heart problems.
Researchers suggested they could act as “a promising physical activity target”, particularly for women who are unable or unwilling to exercise.
The study used data from 81,052 middle-aged people taking part in the UK Biobank study, who wore an activity tracker for seven days between 2013 and 2015. Among them, 22,368 people reported doing no regular exercise or if they did only went for a walk once a week.
Their heart health was tracked until the end of November 2022.
Women who recorded a daily average of 3.4 minutes of intense activity, but reported no formal exercise, were 45% less likely to have a heart attack, stroke or heart failure compared with women who did not manage any activity.
Specifically, the risk of a heart attack was 51% lower, and the risk of developing heart failure was 67% lower.
The associations were less clear and less significant in men. Men who managed 5.6 minutes of these activity bursts a day, but no formal exercise, cut their risk of heart attacks, strokes and heart failure by 16%.
Regina Giblin, a senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, who was not involved with the study, said: “We know already that any amount of exercise is beneficial when trying to lower your risk of heart attacks and strokes. This large study is evidence that getting your body moving and raising your heart rate even just for a few minutes daily can really make a difference to having a healthy heart.
“The study showed even just a few minutes of vigorous activity per day can significantly lower the risk of overall cardiovascular events for middle aged women, who do not do regular exercise.”
However, for people able to exercise, the recommendation remained that you should aim for at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise a week, Giblin said.