Exercise: More is More Part 2

Exercise!  More exercise!  That's all I ever hear, that's all I ever seem to write about these days.  But there's got to be more to life than exercising, or getting physically active, or avoiding TV watching, right?  After all, we're busy running around the rest of the day and need to take some time off to unwind by sitting down to watch a show or two (or catch up w/our friends latest posts via social networking).  Don't we?

So if you're like me (and my kids), you like to push the limit and find out just how far you can go before getting into trouble.  In the case of exercise, standard guidelines recommend at least 30 minutes/d of moderate intensity activity most days of the week in order to accumulate 150 minutes/wk.  Luckily for you & me, in a study just published online in the Lancet earlier this week (see, maybe I won't be late to my own funeral!), some Taiwanese researchers concluded that just half that amount, 15 minutes/day 6 days/week for a total of just 90 minutes/week of moderate intensity activity was associated with a 14% decrease in all-cause mortality, equivalent to 3 more years of life for women to do something else (and 2.55 years for men).

They arrived at their numbers by following 199,265 men and 216,910 women for 8 years (I'll leave it to you to decide whether you can generalize Australian, British & Taiwanese data to your patients).  Interestingly, those who started exercising 15 minutes/d often then increased to 30 minutes/d.  For those compelled to do more, every additional 15 minutes of daily exercise beyond the initial 15 minutes/d reduced all-cause mortality by another 4%.  In fact, 30 minutes/d of exercise extended life expectancy by 3.67 years in women and 4.21 years in men.

Similar benefits were noted regardless of sex, age, and other typical confounders, including the presence of heart disease.  The conclusion of this week's trifecta?  When it comes to TV watching, less is more.  But when it comes to exercise, more is more (although you can still get benefit by initially aiming lower).