Even minute-long exercise “bursts” can help women’s hearts | Health

Key insights

• Small bursts of daily activity can protect women’s heart health

• Women were 51% less likely to have a heart attack when these short bursts lasted up to four minutes each day

• Men didn’t have as much benefit

WEDNESDAY, Dec. 4, 2024 (HealthDay News) — Take the stairs. Carry heavy shopping bags. Go up the hill. Play tag with a child or pet.

A new study shows that incorporating these tiny bursts of intense physical activity into everyday life can cut a woman’s risk of having a heart attack in half.

An average of four minutes a day of this type of activity appears to protect heart health in women who don’t otherwise exercise, researchers reported Dec. 3 in the journal British Journal of Sports Medicine.

“We found that at least 1.5 to an average of four minutes of vigorous physical activity daily, performed in short bursts of up to one minute, is associated with improved cardiovascular health outcomes in middle-aged women who do not engage in structured exercise.” said lead researcher Emmanuel Stamatakis, professor of physical activity, lifestyle and population health at the University of Sydney in Australia.

Researchers found that women were 51% less likely to have a heart attack and 67% less likely to develop heart failure when they engaged in these short bursts of activity, compared to women who were completely sedentary were.

“Making short-term intense physical activity a lifestyle habit could be a promising option for women who are reluctant to engage in structured exercise or are unable to do so for some reason,” Stamatakis said in a university news release.

For the study, researchers analyzed data from nearly 22,400 adults aged 40 to 79, 58% of whom were women, who took part in the UK Biobank long-term health research project.

All of these participants said they didn’t do regular structured exercise, but they wore fitness trackers for a week so researchers could estimate how much exercise they could do in their normal daily lives.

The results showed that the more these tiny bursts of activity accumulate in a woman’s life, the lower the risk of a serious heart-related health emergency.

Researchers found that women who exercised an average of 3.4 minutes daily had a 45% lower risk of suffering from heart problems such as heart attacks, strokes and heart failure.

Even a minimum of 1.2 to 1.5 minutes per day was associated with a 33% lower risk of a heart attack and a 40% lower risk of heart failure.

However, men did not get the same benefit from short bursts of activity. Men who spent an average of 5.6 minutes a day were only 16% less likely to have heart problems, and those who spent at least 2.3 minutes only had an 11% reduction in risk.

More research is needed to understand why these short bursts of activity make such a difference in women’s heart health, Stamatakis said.

“Importantly, the positive associations we observed occurred among women who engaged in short (physical) activities almost daily,” Stamatakis said. “This highlights the importance of habit formation, which is not always easy.”

These short daily bursts of activity “should not be viewed as a quick fix – there are no magic bullets for health,” Stamatakis added. “But our results show that even slightly higher-intensity activity can be helpful and may be just the thing to help people develop regular physical activity – or even exercise – as a habit.”

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more information about the benefits of physical activity.

SOURCE: University of Sydney, press release, December 3, 2024

What this means for you

Women shouldn’t shy away from short but strenuous activities like climbing stairs, as these can boost their heart health.