Running to catch the bus, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, or carrying shopping bags home can be activities that help improve cardiovascular health. The concept of VILPA (Vigorous Intermittent Lifestyle Physical Activity) has recently been coined by experts and seeks to integrate exercise into the daily routine. investigation Several universities, including Sydney, Cadiz and Southern Denmark, have noted that an average of 3.4 minutes a day of this type of activity can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease by up to 45% in sedentary women.
In the study, the scientists used a sample of more than 22,000 people with an average age of 62 years. For a week they used an accelerometer to measure their level of physical activity and were then followed for eight years. In addition to a reduction in overall cardiovascular disease risk, they also observed a 51% reduction in myocardial infarction and a 67% reduction in heart failure. The key to incorporating intensity into these daily tasks is to “get a little breath” when doing them, explains Borja del Pozo, a health researcher at the University of Cádiz (UCA) and one of the authors of the work.
The aim of working for such short periods is to be able to restructure daily life to include some moments of exercise, the University of Central Asia researcher is developing. However, Inés García, a researcher at the National Center for Cardiovascular Research (CNIC), believes the average VILPA duration of 3.4 minutes in study participants is “really short.”
One hypothesis put forward by Emmanuel Stamatakis, lead author of the research, is that VILPA, if repeated regularly, can improve cardiorespiratory fitness over time. This, also known as aerobic fitness, is an important determinant of the risk of cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death in the world. The scientist points out that people with this low ability are more likely to suffer from these problems.
Manuel Anguita, spokesman for the Spanish Society of Cardiology (SEC), stresses that we should not be satisfied with the effect of a little physical activity: “It’s okay if you do nothing, but the more, the better.” He and Garcia point out that we shouldn’t forget the World Health Organization’s recommendations for at least 75 to 150 minutes of intense aerobic activity per week.
The three experts agree that these peaks of intense physical activity in no way replace physical exercise. In fact, Anguita says, if people who continue this brief activity are compared with those who exercise regularly, “it’s clear that they would still have a much worse prognosis.” Del Pozo points out that they are two different concepts and that VILPA’s research can help create complementary recommendations. Stamatakis, the lead author of the work, defends the fact that because this activity does not require expense, time commitment, or travel to the gym, it can represent “significant practical advantages over structured exercise.”
It does not replace training
This is the first time the impact of precise patterns of exercise on sedentary women and men has been analyzed separately, del Pozo highlights. In the work, they attribute the different outcomes between women and men to genetic differences. The energy expenditure is very similar, but it requires more intensity for them. The authors suggest that it would be desirable to establish physical activity guidelines for each gender, which Inés García, of the CNIC, considers “quite reasonable.”
Another article from 2022, also led by Stamatakis, linked at least three to four minutes daily of VILPA with up to a 28% reduction in all-cause mortality. If three daily sessions are performed, the risk of death from cardiovascular disease can be reduced by 48% to 49%.
For the researcher from the University of Cádiz, this type of research could be useful for learning how these subtle patterns of physical activity affect people’s health. Del Pozo admits that this concept is still poorly studied, and that a future step in the work he has been involved in should be to try to replicate these findings in other populations. The scientist points out that the sample used represents only 5% of the British population and that the majority of them are in good health. He points out, “There are good indicators, but we need more studies and more results.”
One in four adults in the world do not reach recommended levels of physical activity. According to the World Health Organization. In Spain, the National Institute of Statistics reported in 2022 that 27.4% of the population declared themselves sedentary during their free time. Because of data like this, Inés García of CNIC considers the results of this research “interesting.” The researcher concludes that activity patterns such as VILPA can make it easier for some people to incorporate exercise into their daily lives and “reinforce the idea of consistency, that being physically active every day is a very positive thing.”
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