Study finds moderate-vigorous physical activity is the most efficient at improving fitness

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, Aug. 27, 2021
Contact: Maria Ober, mpober@bu.edu, 617-224-8963

(Boston)—In the largest study performed to date to understand the relationship between habitual physical activity and physical fitness, researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have found that higher amount of time spent performing exercise (moderate-vigorous physical activity) and low-moderate level activity (steps) and less time spent sedentary, translated to greater physical fitness.

“By establishing the relationship between different forms of habitual physical activity and detailed fitness measures, we hope that our study will provide important information that can ultimately be used to improve physical fitness and overall health across the life course,” explained corresponding author Matthew Nayor, MD, MPH, assistant professor of medicine at BUSM.

He and his team studied approximately 2,000 participants from the community-based Framingham Heart Study who underwent comprehensive cardiopulmonary exercise tests (CPET) for the “gold standard” measurement of physical fitness. Physical fitness measurements were associated with physical activity data obtained through accelerometers (device that measures frequency and intensity of human movement) that were worn for one week around the time of CPET and approximately eight years earlier.

They found dedicated exercise (moderate-vigorous physical activity) was the most efficient at improving fitness. Specifically, exercise was three times more efficient than walking alone and more than 14 times more efficient than reducing the time spent sedentary. Additionally, they found that the greater time spent exercising and higher steps/day could partially offset the negative effects of being sedentary in terms of physical fitness.

According to the researchers, while the study was focused on the relationship of physical activity and fitness specifically (rather than any health-related outcomes), fitness has a powerful influence on health and is associated with lower risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer and premature death. “Therefore, improved understanding of methods to improve fitness would be expected to have broad implications for improved health,” said Nayor, a cardiologist at Boston Medical Center.

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These findings appear online in the European Heart Journal.

The Framingham Heart Study is supported by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) (Contracts N01-HC-25195, HHSN26 8201500001I, and 75N92019D00031). This work was supported by NIH grants K23-HL138260 (M.N.) and R01-HL131029 (R.S.V. and G.D.L.) and AHA grant 15GPSGC24800006 (G.D.L.). M.N. is supported by a Career Investment Award from the Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine. R.S.V. is supported in part by the Evans Medical Foundation and the Jay and Louis Coffman Endowment from the Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine.

Editor’s Note:

R.V.S. is supported in part by grants from the National Institutes of Health and the American Heart Association. In the past 12 months, R.V.S. has served as a consultant for Myokardia (ongoing) and Best Doctors (ongoing), receives research funding from Amgen (con-cluded), and had minor stock holdings in Gilead, and his spouse has current stock holdings in Pfizer. R.V.S. is a co-inventor on a patent for ex-RNAs signatures of cardiac remodelling. G.D.L. acknowledges research funding from the National Institutes of Health and the American Heart Association as well as Amgen, Cytokinetics, Applied Therapeutics, AstraZeneca, and Sonivie in relation to projects and clinical trials investigating exercise capacity that are distinct from this work. He has served as a scientific advisor for Pfizer, Merck, Boehringer-Ingelheim, Novartis, American Regent, Relypsa, Cyclerion, Cytokinetics, and Amgen and receives royalties from UpToDate for scientific content authorship related to exercise physiology. N.L.S. acknowledges research support from the Alzheimer’s Association and has also received funding from Novo Nordisk for a MD-initiated research grant unrelated to the current paper. J.M.M. has served as a guest lecturer/consultant at Merck. The other authors report no conflicts of interest.