The study involved almost 90,000 people (average age 62, 56% women) participating in the UK Biobank research project. All wore wrist accelerometers that recorded their total physical activity and time spent at different exercise intensities over a week. Using this data and the guideline-based threshold of 150 minutes per week of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, researchers classified participants as weekend warriors, regular, or inactive. (Weekend warriors and regular exercisers were comparable in terms of total exercise time, but weekend warriors concentrated their physical activity over one or two sessions per week, while regular exercisers spread their physical activity throughout the week.) The researchers then looked for associations between physical activity patterns and incidence. of 678 conditions covering 16 types of diseases.
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