People who exercise the most in the morning have a lower risk of stroke and heart attack. This is the conclusion of a study by researchers at the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC). This is not just about intensive exercise such as sports, but really about all exercise in a day. The study appeared today in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology.
Exercise
“Physical exercise is good for your health, almost everyone knows that,” says PhD student Gali Albalak. “When we talk about the health benefits of exercise, it quickly becomes about how often and how intensively you should exercise, and almost never about when you can exercise best.”
By examining the exercise data of more than 85,000 Britons, Albalak and colleagues found that people who exercise the most in the late morning, from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m., have a 16 percent lower risk of having a heart attack and a 17 percent lower risk of heart attack. less chance of a stroke. This is in comparison to people with no apparent peak in exercise.
Biological clock
“So timing does seem to matter,” says Albalak.
According to the researchers, the explanation for this lies in our biological clock. It ensures that everything in our body, from cells to organs, has a 24-hour rhythm.
“It is important that all these rhythms are in sync,” says Albalak. “If these become disrupted, which sometimes happens to people who work night shifts, the risk of aging diseases, such as diabetes and dementia, increases.”
Exercise, but also the timing of eating and exposure to light, ensures that your biological clock stays in the right rhythm.
“We think that a peak in physical activity in the morning is most in line with your biological rhythm and that more health benefits can be achieved that way. In this case, with a lower risk of a heart attack and cerebral infarction,” explains co-researcher Raymond Noordam.
Greater effect in women
The participants in this population study in the United Kingdom were between 42 and 78 years old. They wore a wristband that tracked their movements for a week. On this basis, they were divided into four groups: people who exercised most in the early morning, late morning, afternoon and evening.
“Participants were followed for 8 years to see how many of them had a heart or cerebral infarction. That turned out to be almost 3800. We then calculated which exercise pattern has the lowest risk of this,” says Noordam.
This turned out to be in the late morning and is independent of the total amount of exercise on a day and therefore also applies to people who exercise very little.
Interesting enough this was effect greatest in women.Distributed according to gender, the researchers saw that women who exercised the most in the morning had a 22% to 24% lower risk of having a heart attack. The researchers cannot explain exactly why this is the case with this study design, which used historical data.
Sports lessons
The influence of timing of exercise on your health is a relatively new field of research. The underlying mechanisms are therefore often still unclear, but there is increasing evidence that timing matters. Whether exercise in the morning is really the only cause for a reduced risk of a heart attack or stroke must be shown by studies in which people are instructed in advance to exercise at a certain time.
Noordam and Albalak themselves will soon start such an intervention study for the elderly, offering them sports lessons in the morning or evening.
Albalak: “Ultimately, we don’t just want to tell people that they should exercise more, but also when they can best do so.”
Read the full article in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology