The physical activity health paradox and risk factors for cardiovascular disease: A cross-sectional compositional data analysis in the Copenhagen City Heart Study

Abstract

Background Studies indicate that physical activity during leisure and work have opposite associations with cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors, referred to as the physical activity health paradox. We investigated how sedentary behaviour and physical activity types during leisure and work are associated with systolic blood pressure (SBP), waist circumference (WC), and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) in an adult general population sample using compositional data analysis. Methods Participants wore accelerometers for 7 days (right thigh and iliac crest; 24 h/day) and had their SBP, WC, and LDL-C measured. Accelerometer data was analysed using the software Acti4 to derive daily time spent in sedentary behaviour and physical activity types. The measure of association was quantified by reallocating time between sedentary behaviour and 1) walking, and 2) high-intensity physical activity (HIPA; sum of climbing stairs, running, cycling, and rowing), during both domains. Results In total, 652 participants were included in the analyses (median wear time: 6 days, 23.8 h/day). During leisure, the results indicated that less sedentary behaviour and more walking or more HIPA was associated with lower SBP, while during work, the findings indicated an association with higher SBP. During both domains, the findings indicated that less sedentary behaviour and more HIPA was associated with a smaller WC and lower LDL-C. However, the findings indicated less sedentary behaviour and more walking to be associated with a larger WC and higher LDL-C, regardless of domain. Conclusions During leisure, less sedentary behaviour and more walking or HIPA seems to be associated with a lower SBP, but, during work, it seems to be associated with a higher SBP. No consistent differences between domains were observed for WC and LDL-C. These findings highlight the importance of considering the physical activity health paradox, at least for some risk factors for CVD.

Weekday and weekend physical activity patterns and their correlates among young adults

“…This is because a recent study among 40–79 year‐old Dutch adults suggests that those active only on weekdays have poorer cardiometabolic health compared to those who are consistently moderately or highly active 12 . Moreover, relying solely on work‐related physical activity may not provide all the health benefits of physical activity 5,6,11 . However, we did not examine health implications of the observed physical activity patterns among young adults and thus, future studies are needed to elaborate this aspect.…”

“…12 Moreover, relying solely on work-related physical activity may not provide all the health benefits of physical activity. 5,6,11 However, we did not examine health implications of the observed physical activity patterns among young adults and thus, future studies are needed to elaborate this aspect.…”

“…3,4 Physical activity patterns may also have health implications beyond the physical activity volume. For instance, recent accelerometer-based studies have suggested that physical activity during leisure time compared to workrelated physical activity was associated with lower systolic blood pressure 5 and better cardiorespiratory fitness. 6 A recent study implies that the timing of physical activity across waking hours may also matter, as those being physically active mainly between middays and afternoons had lower risk of cardiovascular and all-cause mortality compared to those who were physically active mostly during mornings or evenings.…”

Acute myocardial infarctions identified in the Manitoba Occupational Disease Surveillance System: A linkage of worker's compensation and provincial health data

“…5 Traditional modifiable risk factors such as hypertension, 6,7 hypercholesterolemia, 8 obesity, 9 smoking, 10 diabetes, 11 and sedentary behaviors 12 explain a considerable portion of the risk of disease. However, workplace exposures to occupational stress, 13 certain chemicals, 14 sedentary work, 12 noise, 15,16 high occupational physical activity, 17,18 and other potential factors either acting directly or indirectly through traditional risk factors may lead to increased risk of myocardial infarctions in certain industry/job classifications. The purpose of this study was to identify jobs or industries that may be associated with increased or decreased risk of having a myocardial infarction to provide greater understanding of the relationship between work and heart disease and potentially identify work areas that may benefit from educational efforts and further research.…”

Integrity and Performance of Four Tape Solutions for Mounting Accelerometry Devices: Lolland-Falster Health Study

“…Another attachment option is skin mounting, which has received increased attention over the past few years as it improves wear compliance, and thus data quality (Schneller et al, 2017;Troiano et al, 2014). Skin mounting has been applied using different types of accelerometers, for example, activPAL (Edwardson et al, 2017), ActiGraph (Gupta et al, 2015;Johansson et al, 2022), and Axivity AX3 (Duncan et al, 2018;Schneller et al, 2017). The triaxial Axivity AX3) is very suitable for skin mounting because it is a small, light-weight, waterproof device, which can be attached directly onto the skin for uninterrupted recording 24 hr/day (Duncan et al, 2018).…”