Depending on your body composition and overall health, there appears to be a best time of day to exercise. People living with obesity get the greatest health benefits from physical activity in the evenings, according to a new Australian study.
Researchers from Charles Perkins Center at the University of Sydney found that participants who performed the bulk of their moderate-to-vigorous aerobic activity between 6:00 pm and 11:59 pm had the lowest risk of premature death, cardiovascular disease, and microvascular disease. The results were published last month in the journal Diabetes treatment.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has recognized obesity global epidemic, calling it “one of today’s most visible yet most neglected public health challenges.” Globally every eighth person in 2022 were living with obesity. This year, 2.5 billion adults aged 18 and older were overweight, 890 million of whom were living with obesity. More than 390 million children and adolescents aged 5 to 19 were overweight, as were 37 million children under 5 years of age.
WHO recognizes obesity as a chronic disease that can not only impair health, but also impair quality of life. This carries an increased risk of a variety of medical problems, from stroke and some cancers to neurological disorders and chronic respiratory diseases.
“Exercise is by no means the only solution to the obesity crisis,” study co-author. Angelo Sabag, Ph.D.said in news release. “But this study suggests that people who can schedule their activities at specific times of day may be best able to offset some of these health risks.”
Frequency of physical activity is more important than total amount
The Australian study was observational in nature and analyzed data from almost 30,000 people from UK Biobank who have a body mass index of at least 30, which considered obese. Of these, about 3,000 also had type 2 diabetes. All of them were over 40 years old, with an average age of 62 years. The cohort is 53% female.
Each study participant wore an accelerometer on their dominant wrist 24/7 for a week. These devices allowed the researchers to classify participants’ movements by type—sedentary, standing, walking or running/high-energy—and by intensity—sedentary, light, moderate or vigorous.
The researchers focused on bouts of moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) lasting at least three minutes. About half of the participants did not have such periods of MVPA and formed the control group. The remainder were divided into morning (6–11:59 a.m.), afternoon (noon to 5:59 p.m.) and evening (6–11:59 p.m.) groups based on when most of their MVPA fights occurred.
“We didn’t differentiate what activity we tracked,” co-author Matthew Ahmadi, Ph.D.“, it says. “This can be anything from race walking to climbing stairs, but can also include structured exercise such as running, professional labor or even vigorous house cleaning.”
Because the data was collected between 2013 and 2015, the researchers were able to track the participants’ health over time. Over an average of eight years, they measured the incidence of cardiovascular diseases, microvascular diseasesand mortality among participants. People who already had cancer or cardiovascular disease were excluded from the study.
Compared with the control group, the morning, afternoon, and evening MVPA groups had a lower risk of death. However, the evening group showed the lowest risk. The researchers observed similar results for cardiovascular and microvascular disease, with the evening group showing the lowest risk.
Among the subgroup of participants who also had type 2 diabetes, the evening MVPA group again showed the lowest risk of death, cardiovascular disease, and microvascular disease.
Additionally, the researchers found that the frequency with which people performed evening MVPA was more important than the total amount of their daily physical activity.
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Why is evening exercise good for health?
Insulina hormone that helps your body use glucose or sugar for energy is key to why exercise in the evening is so beneficial, explains Loretta DiPietro, Ph.D.professor in Department of Exercise and Nutrition at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University. Insulin is produced in the pancreas, an organ that usually needs help at the end of the day.
“Especially as people get older, [the] The beta cells of the pancreas age, insulin secretion becomes dull and somewhat delayed. And this happens more and more often as the day goes on,” DiPietro says. Luck. “The muscle contractions themselves will help remove glucose from the blood.”
According to DiPietro, people tend to eat most of the day in the evening, when they are most inactive. This means they are going to sleep with high glucose levels (hyperglycemia)driving up to them hemoglobin A1Ca measure of your average blood sugar level over the past three months.
“Hyperglycemia causes a lot of damage: first inflammation and then damage to the blood vessels of the microvascular system,” says DiPietro. “Especially in these vulnerable people with obesity and diabetes, [evening exercise] may actually reduce the risk of mortality and microvascular disease. Has the meaning”.
Although DiPietro was not involved in the Australian study, she was a co-author year 2013 Diabetes treatment study showing that for older adults with obesity and risk impaired glucose toleranceA 15-minute walk 30 minutes after each meal was as effective as a 45-minute morning walk in improving glycemic control. Moreover, her results showed that walking after dinner was the most beneficial.
You don’t have to worry about going to the gym after a big dinner. According to DiPietro, an easy walk around the area will do: “Europeans have been doing this for centuries.” However, if you prefer vigorous exercise at night, try not to do it before bed. Previous Study showed that nighttime exercise disrupts the body’s internal clock, making it more difficult to fall asleep.
Researchers from the University of Sydney tried to eliminate bias by controlling for variables such as age, biological sex, medication use, smoking and alcohol consumption, and fruit and vegetable consumption. Despite this, they could not rule out reverse causation – the possibility that some people were doing minimal physical activity. because they had an underlying disease.
The bottom line, according to DiPetro, is that there is no bad time of day to improve your cardiometabolic health.
“Play sports or get enough physical activity whenever you can,” she says. “But for those of you [with obesity]you’ll probably get more bang for your buck if you do it after dinner.”
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