Overview

• The analysis of about 3,300 NHANES adults who did no structured exercise linked roughly 1.1 minutes per day of vigorous effort with a 38% lower all-cause mortality over six years.
• Participants wore wrist accelerometers for one week, and the vigorous time could be accumulated in about six 10‑second bursts during everyday tasks like stairs, heavy carrying or energetic play.
• The study is observational, so it cannot establish causation, and wrist-based intensity estimates from a short monitoring window may be misclassified.
• Compared with earlier UK Biobank findings that tied about 4.4 daily minutes to similar risk reductions, researchers say less-fit populations may gain more from small doses, a ceiling-effect explanation.
• Health agencies still advise weekly targets such as 150 minutes of moderate activity, and coverage differs on whether the new paper is peer reviewed as the team prepares more rigorous follow-up studies.