Health & Medicine, UK (Commonwealth Union) – A new study conducted by the University of Cambridge has found that less time spent when adults are above 60 years old is associated with lesser quality of life in a study conducted on 1,500 adults.
Similarly, sedentary behaviors such as watching TV or reading also showed the same trend. This emphasizes the importance of promoting physical activity among older adults.
Engaging in physical activity, especially when it is of moderate intensity and elevates your heart rate, is known to decrease the chances of various diseases such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and cancer. The National Health Service (NHS) recommends that adults aim for at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity activity per week. Additionally, older adults are advised to incorporate light activity whenever possible to break up prolonged periods of sitting or, at the very least, to stand, as these actions offer specific health benefits for the elderly.
A group of researchers led by the University of Cambridge conducted a study involving 1,433 participants aged 60 and above who were part of the EPIC-Norfolk (European Prospective Investigation into Cancer) study. The researchers used accelerometers to assess the participants’ activity levels.
Furthermore, the team examined the participants’ health-related quality of life, which measures aspects such as pain, self-care ability, and mood. The participants completed a questionnaire, and their responses were used to assign a score ranging from 0 (indicating the poorest quality of life) to 1 (indicating the best quality of life). Lower scores in quality of life are associated with an increased risk of hospitalization, poorer outcomes after hospitalization, and premature death.
On average, six years after their initial assessment, both men and women exhibited a decrease of approximately 24 minutes per day in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity. Simultaneously, the total time spent in sedentary behavior increased by an average of approximately 33 minutes per day for men and 38 minutes per day for women.
Individuals who engaged in more moderate-to-vigorous physical activity and spent less time sedentary during their initial assessment experienced higher quality of life in the long run. For each additional hour per day of being more physically active, there was a corresponding increase of 0.02 in the quality of life score.
Conversely, for every minute per day that individuals reduced their engagement in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, their quality of life scores decreased by 0.03. This means that someone who decreased their daily activity by 15 minutes would have experienced a decline of 0.45 in their quality of life score.
Furthermore, an increase in sedentary behavior was linked to a lower quality of life, with a reduction of 0.012 in the score for every additional minute per day of sedentary time measured six years after the initial assessment. This indicates that an individual who spent an extra 15 minutes per day sitting down would have seen their score decrease by 0.18.
In a clinical context, it is noteworthy that a 0.1 point improvement in quality of life scores has previously been associated with a 6.9% decrease in the risk of early death and a 4.2% decrease in the risk of hospitalization.
Participants were tracked up an average of just less than 6 years later to view alterations in their behaviour and quality of life. The findings of the research appeared in Health and Quality of Life Outcomes.
Dr Dharani Yerrakalva from the Department of Public Health and Primary Care at the University of Cambridge says “Keeping yourself active and limiting – and where you can, breaking up – the amount of time you spend sitting down is really important whatever stage of life you’re at. This seems to be particularly important in later life, when it can lead to potentially significant improvements to your quality of life and your physical and mental wellbeing.”
