{"id":101071,"date":"2025-07-29T03:44:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T03:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/101071\/"},"modified":"2025-07-29T03:44:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T03:44:09","slug":"one-weekend-habit-may-cut-risk-of-heart-related-death-by-33-study-finds-sciencealert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/101071\/","title":{"rendered":"One Weekend Habit May Cut Risk of Heart-Related Death by 33%, Study Finds : ScienceAlert"},"content":{"rendered":"

We know that exercise has numerous health benefits<\/a>, but does it matter how much you spread it out? Even only working out on the weekends may still reduce some people’s risk of early death, according to a new study.<\/p>\n

Researchers were interested in how people might build physical activity into busy schedules and decided to focus on those with diabetes<\/a>, for whom exercise-related benefits such as reduced insulin resistance<\/a> are particularly important.<\/p>\n

“Many people struggle to engage in regular physical activity throughout the week due to time constraints,” the team from the US, China, and Australia writes<\/a> in their published paper.<\/p>\n

“To overcome this, some condense their recommended moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) into 1 or 2 weekly sessions \u2013 a pattern known as the ‘weekend warrior’ approach.”<\/p>\n

Related: Ideal Number of Daily Steps Isn’t as Many as We’ve Been Told<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The researchers crunched the numbers on 51,650 adults with diabetes<\/a>, splitting them into four groups: those who did no MVPA, those who did less than the recommended 150 minutes<\/a> per week, those who hit 150 minutes a week in 3 or more sessions, and those who managed 150 minutes a week in 1\u20132 sessions (the weekend warriors).<\/p>\n

Any level of exercise was shown to be beneficial, but primarily for those who managed the MVPA recommendations. People who participated in 3 or more weekly sessions had a 17 percent lower risk of dying during the study period, as well as a 19 percent lower risk of dying from cardiovascular-related issues<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The weekend warriors fared even better: this group showed a 21 percent lower risk of all-cause mortality and a 33 percent lower risk of cardiovascular-related mortality. So even if you only have time for a single exercise session<\/a> or a couple of workouts, you can still get some of the same health benefits.<\/p>\n

\"ExerciseThe researchers charted exercise against mortality. (Wu et al., Ann. Intern. Med., 2025)<\/p>\n

“Even those who engaged in MPVA for less than 150 minutes per week experienced lower all-cause mortality than those who didn’t,” writes<\/a> the team.<\/p>\n

“This underscores the importance of any physical activity for people with diabetes.”<\/p>\n

The study doesn’t establish cause and effect and by its use of self-reported data to look at a snapshot in time \u2013 and in only covering people with diabetes. However, it’s backed by many previous studies that show any amount of exercise<\/a> can make a difference.<\/p>\n

Most past research has agreed that the weekend warrior approach works as well as any other: as long as you’re hitting those recommended targets, you get the same benefits in terms of both physical health<\/a> and mental health<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That’s encouraging for anyone struggling to fit in gym visits during the Monday-Friday grind, but most studies<\/a> (including this latest one) define weekend warriors as those who only exercise properly 1\u20132 times a week, regardless of the days.<\/p>\n

“Previous studies in the general population suggest weekend warriors may obtain comparable mortality benefits to regularly active persons, though estimates vary by population characteristics (for example, non-leisure-time physical activity),” write<\/a> the researchers.<\/p>\n

The research has been published in the Annals of Internal Medicine<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We know that exercise has numerous health benefits, but does it matter how much you spread it out?…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":101072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[1198,210,352,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-101071","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fitness","8":"tag-fitness","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-msft-content","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114934465656009743","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}