Any activity is better for your heart than sitting

Replacing sitting with as little as a few minutes of moderate exercise a day tangibly improves heart health, according to new research from UCL and the University of Sydney. The study, supported by the British Heart Foundation (BHF) and published in the European Heart Journal , is the first to assess how different movement patterns throughout the 24-hour day are linked to heart health. It is the first evidence to emerge from the international Prospective Physical Activity, Sitting and Sleep (ProPASS) consortium. Cardiovascular disease, which refers to all diseases of the heart and circulation, is the number one cause of mortality globally. In 2021, it was responsible for one in three deaths (20.5m), with coronary heart disease alone the single biggest killer. Since 1997, the number of people living with cardiovascular disease across the world has doubled and is projected to rise further. In this study, researchers at UCL analysed data from six studies, encompassing 15,246 people from five countries, to see how movement behaviour across the day is associated with heart health, as measured by six common indicators.