Time of day to exercise makes a difference for those with obesity

04/30/2024

Editorial of the Health Diary

What time should I exercise?

There has been a long debate among experts about the best time of day to exercise, but there appears to be a more straightforward answer for people struggling with obesity.

Doing most of your daily physical activity at night has brought the greatest health benefits to people living with obesity, according to Angelo Sabag and colleagues at the University of Sydney (Australia), who tracked 30,000 people over almost 8 years. years.

Using data from wearable devices to categorize participants’ physical activity into morning, afternoon or evening, researchers found that those who did most of their moderate to vigorous aerobic physical activity – the kind that raises our heart rate and leaves us breathless – between 6pm and midnight had the lowest risk of premature death and death from cardiovascular disease.

The frequency with which people performed moderate to vigorous physical activity at night, measured in short bursts of up to three minutes or more, also appeared to be more important than the total amount of daily physical activity.

Smaller clinical trials have previously shown similar results, but the large scale of data from participants in this study, the use of objective measures of physical activity, and the measurement of serious consequences, such as premature death, make these results significant.

“Exercise is by no means the only solution to the obesity crisis, but this research suggests that people who can plan their activity at certain times of day can better offset some of these health risks,” concluded Sabag.