11 minutes of daily exercise can have a positive impact on your health, a large study shows

If you can’t fit all your training into one busy day, do you think there’s no point in doing anything at all?

You should reconsider this way of thinking.

Just 11 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous aerobic activity a day could lower your risk of cancer, cardiovascular disease or premature death, a large new study has found.

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Aerobic activities include walking, dancing, running, jogging, cycling, and swimming. You can measure the intensity of an activity based on your heart rate and how hard you breathe while moving.

In general, the ability to speak but not sing during an activity would moderate the intensity.

High intensity is characterized by an inability to hold a conversation.

According to previous research, higher levels of physical activity have been associated with lower rates of premature death and chronic diseases.

But how the risk levels for these outcomes are affected by the amount of exercise someone gets has been more difficult to determine.

To examine these effects, scientists, mainly from the University of Cambridge in the UK, examined data from 196 studies involving more than 30 million adult participants followed for an average of 10 years.

The results of this latest study were published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine on Tuesday.

The study primarily focused on participants who had exercised the minimum recommended amount of 150 minutes per week, or 22 minutes per day.

Compared to inactive participants, adults who engaged in 150 minutes of moderate-to-intense aerobic physical activity per week had a 31 percent reduced risk of dying from any cause, and a 29 percent reduced risk of dying from cardiovascular disease die, and a 15 percent reduced risk of dying from cancer.

The same amount of exercise was associated with a 27 percent lower risk of cardiovascular disease and a 12 percent lower risk of cancer.

“This is a compelling systematic review of existing research,” said CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency room physician and professor of public health at George Washington University, who was not involved in the research.

““Some are better than none.”“

“We already knew that there is a strong association between increased physical activity and a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer and premature death.

“This study confirms it, and also finds that less than the recommended 150 minutes of exercise per week can help.”

Even people who only got half the recommended minimum amount of physical activity benefited.

Accumulating 75 minutes of moderate-intensity activity per week — about 11 minutes of activity per day — was associated with a 23 percent lower risk of early death.

Being active 75 minutes a week was also enough to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease by 17 percent and cancer by 7 percent.

Beyond 150 minutes per week, the additional benefits were less.

“If you’re someone who finds the idea of ​​150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity per week a little daunting, then our results should be good news,” said study author Dr. Soren Brage, group leader of the physical activity epidemiology group in the Department of Epidemiology of the Medical Research Council at the University of Cambridge in a press release.

“That’s also a good place to start — if you find 75 minutes a week is doable, then you could try gradually increasing it to the full recommended amount.”

The authors’ findings support the World Health Organization’s position that it’s better to get some physical activity than none, even if you don’t get the recommended amounts of exercise.

“One in 10 premature deaths could have been prevented if everyone had achieved half the recommended physical activity,” the authors write in the study.

In addition, “10.9% and 5.2% of all new cases of CVD (cardiovascular disease) and cancer would have been prevented.”

A little exercise every day

The authors did not have details on the specific types of physical activity that the participants engaged in.

However, some experts have concerns about how physical activity might reduce the risk of chronic disease and premature death.

“There are many potential mechanisms, including the improvement and maintenance of body composition, insulin resistance, and physical function due to a variety of beneficial influences of aerobic activity,” said Haruki Momma, associate professor of medicine and science in the field of sport and exercise at Tohoku University in Japan. Momma wasn’t involved in the research.

Benefits could also include improvements in immune function, lung and heart health, inflammation levels, high blood pressure, cholesterol levels and the amount of body fat, said Eleanor Watts, a postdoctoral researcher in the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics at the National Cancer Institute. Watts was not involved in the research.

“This results in a lower risk of developing chronic diseases,” said Peter Katzmarzyk, associate executive director of population and public health sciences at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Katzmarzyk was not involved in the research.

The fact that participants who performed only half the minimum recommended amount of exercise still felt benefits doesn’t mean that people should stop striving for more exercise, but that “perfection shouldn’t be the enemy of good,” Wen said.

“Some are better than none.”

To get up to 150 minutes of physical activity a week, find activities you enjoy, Wen said.

“You’re far more likely to get involved in something you love to do than in something you have to do yourself.”

And when it comes to how you fit into your workout, you can think outside the box.

“Moderate activity doesn’t have to involve what we normally think of as exercise, like exercising or running,” said study co-author Leandro Garcia, associate professor in the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences at Queen’s University Belfast, in a press release.

“Sometimes it is enough to replace a few habits.

“For example, try to walk or bike to work or study instead of using a car, or play actively with your children or grandchildren.

“Activities that you enjoy and that are easy to fit into your weekly routine are a great way to get more active.”