Journal: Nature communications
This study analyzed accelerometer data from over 73,000 UK Biobank participants to reassess how different physical activity intensities relate to mortality, cardiovascular events, type 2 diabetes, and cancer outcomes over an average follow-up of 8 years.
It challenges the traditional self-reported assumption that 1 minute of vigorous physical activity (VPA) is equivalent to 2 minutes of moderate physical activity (MPA).
The analysis found that 1 minute of VPA corresponds to significantly more minutes of MPA for similar risk reductions, with estimates ranging from about:
- 3.5 minutes for cancer mortality
- up to 9.4 minutes for type 2 diabetes
Light physical activity (LPA) required substantially more time — up to 94 minutes per 1 minute of VPA for diabetes risk reduction — reflecting weaker dose-response associations.
These findings suggest that physical activity guidelines and wearable device metrics should rely on accelerometer-based intensity measures rather than self-reported data.