A recent study1 published in JAMA by Stamatakis et al. set out to answer this question. They conducted a prospective cohort analysis of 22,398 people from the UK biobank accelerometry subsample. They found that compared to those who did not engage in vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity (VILPA), just 3.4-3.6 minutes of VILPA was correlated with a 17-18% decrease in total incident cancer risk.
Compared with not doing VILPA there was a 22-28% decrease in mortality risk associated with only 3.4-4.1 minutes of VILPA a day. less than two 1 or 2 min VILPA bouts were associated with a 24%-26% reduction in all-cause and cancer mortality, and a 33% reduction in cardiovascular disease mortality risk.
The benefits grow from there, with three bouts of VILPA the study found associations of 38%-40% reduction in all-cause and cancer mortality and a 48%-49% reduction in cardiovascular disease mortality risk with three length-standardized bouts per day of VILPA.
4.4 minutes of VILPA per day was correlated with a 26-30% reduction in all-cause and cancer mortality and a 32%-34% reduction in CVD mortality risk.
Vigorous Intermittent Lifestyle Physical Activity (VILPA) – Refers to brief (1-2 minutes) vigorous and sporadic bouts of lifestyle physical activity e.g. fast walking or stair climbing.
This study analyzed wearable data from a large sample of inactive adults. Analyses were adjusted for age, sex, body mass index, education level, smoking status, alcohol consumption, sleep duration, fruit and vegetable consumption, medications, parental cancer history, prevalent cardiovascular disease, daily durations of all light intensity physical activity (LPA) and moderate-intensity physical activity (MPA), and daily duration of longer vigorous physical activity (VPA) bouts.
To me, this evidence is terrific news. It suggests that profound benefits of exercise, assuming it is intense enough, can be obtained with as little as 3 minutes of duration. For those that find structured exercise unappealing, a few minutes fast walking and intense stair climbing a day can substantially lower physical activity related cancer risk.
1. Stamatakis E, Ahmadi MN, Friedenreich CM, et al. Vigorous Intermittent Lifestyle Physical Activity and Cancer Incidence Among Nonexercising Adults: The UK Biobank Accelerometry Study. JAMA Oncol. 2023;9(9):1255–1259. doi:10.1001/jamaoncol.2023.1830