TOPLINE:

Achieving guideline-recommended moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) of ≥ 150 minutes a week was associated with up to a 30% reduced risk for all-cause mortality in patients with hypertension. Risks occurred whether patients exercised regularly throughout the week or concentrated most of their physical activity into 1-2 days.

METHODOLOGY:

• Researchers conducted a prospective cohort study to evaluate the association between MVPA patterns and all-cause mortality in patients with hypertension.
• They analyzed data of 45,068 patients from the UK Biobank who wore wrist accelerometers for 7 consecutive days between 2013 and 2015. The median age of patients was 67 years, and 51.40% were men.
• As per World Health Organization guidelines, participants were classified as active weekend warriors (MVPA ≥ 150 min/wk and ≥ 50% of total MVPA over 1-2 days), active regulars (MVPA ≥ 150 min/wk but not active weekend warriors), and inactive (MVPA < 150 min/wk).
• Over a median follow‑up of 7.5 years, researchers assessed all‑cause mortality as the primary outcome.
• Secondary outcomes included stroke mortality, stroke, and ischemic stroke.

TAKEAWAY:

• During follow-up, 2636 all-cause deaths occurred, corresponding to a cumulative incidence rate of 7.40 per 1000 patient-years.
• In an adjusted model, active weekend warriors and active regulars had up to a 30% lower risk for all-cause mortality than inactive participants (hazard ratios, 0.70 and 0.73, respectively; false discovery rate-corrected P < .0001 for both).
• Active weekend warriors had 14%-17% reduced risks for stroke mortality, stroke, and ischemic stroke, although these were not statistically significant.
• Across MVPA thresholds and even below recommended guideline levels, active weekend warriors and active regulars had a lower risk for all‑cause mortality; at an MVPA of ≥ 94.9 min/wk (25th percentile), mortality was 31% lower for active weekend warriors and 32% lower for active regulars than for inactive participants.

IN PRACTICE:

“Our findings demonstrate that both active WW [weekend warrior] and active MVPA regular patterns meeting guideline recommendations were associated with reduced all-cause mortality risk among individuals with hypertension. Importantly, even active patterns that fell below guideline-recommended levels conferred similar mortality benefits,” the researchers of the study wrote.

SOURCE:

The study was led by Ronghui Zhu, Department of Military Health Statistics, Naval Medical University in Shanghai, China. It was published online on January 7 in Hypertension.

LIMITATIONS:

Collecting accelerometer data over only 7 days limited the assessment of long‑term activity patterns. The inclusion of a predominantly White, socioeconomically advantaged population may have limited generalizability. The timing of accelerometer assessments relative to each patient’s hypertension course was not determined, limiting the interpretation of activity patterns across disease stage.

DISCLOSURES:

The study was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Pilot Program of Naval Medical University, and Shanghai Science and Technology Development Funds.

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.