Reacción a "The recommendation of 150 minutes of exercise per week should be higher for greater cardiovascular protection, according to a study"

The press release does not accurately reflect the science in the paper. The data in the paper very clearly support current World Health Organisation physical activity guidelines. i.e. Achieving 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity, irrespective of your physical fitness level, is associated with ≈8-9% lower risk of future cardiovascular disease. People who are able to do more activity have even lower risk, so every move counts.

However, it is misleading to say that people need to achieve >560 minutes (1hr 20mins per day) for health benefit.

The underlying research is good, using world-leading datasets and well accepted methods. The authors’ conclusions in the scientific manuscript are fine (e.g. “Importantly, these findings simultaneously reinforce the public health value of the current 150 min/week guideline. The remarkably consistent relative risk reduction across all fitness strata (HR, 0.91–0.92) and the broadly overlapping CIs in figure 2A confirm that this threshold functions as a robust universal minimum that does not require fitness-­ based modification. Given that large proportions of the population do not yet meet even this benchmark77, the primary public health message remains straightforward: achieving 150 min/week of MVPA delivers meaningful cardiovascular protection regardless of fitness level.”) … the only problem is with the less careful wording in the abstract and press release text.

We can’t give much weight to the figure of 560-610 minutes of exercise a week. Clearly there will be cardiovascular benefit for people who are able to do >1hr 20mins of moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity per day but this is not a sensible public health message. The public should continue to aim for at least 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous intensity of physical activity per week; more is better; every move counts.

“Public health guidelines are in a current state of transition to in future reflect evidence from studies with device-measured (rather than self-reported) physical activity levels. This exact same dataset has already been used many times (e.g.https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673625022196?via%3Dihub… https://journals.lww.com/acsm-essr/fulltext/2026/01000/daily_steps_as_a_public_health_metric_for_ph…).

“This work clearly contributes to the evidence base showing that it is important for people to be physically active. However, the suggested target is misguided. The public should continue to aim for at least 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous intensity of physical activity per week; more is better; every move counts.