Sit Less, Move More: Heart Patients Live Longer

Researchers wanted to know how daily habits affect lifespan in people who already have heart disease. They focused on two things: how much time a person spends sitting each day and how much physical activity they get.

They used data from a big national health survey that ran from 2007 to 2018. Over 2,500 adults with cardiovascular disease were included. The team followed these participants until the end of 2019 using death records. Physical activity was split into high (at least 500 MET‑minutes per week) and low (less than that). Sitting time was split into low (under seven hours a day) and high (seven hours or more).

People who met the high activity level had about half the risk of dying from any cause compared with those who were low active. The same pattern held for premature death, with a risk reduction of around fifty‑five percent. Each step up in activity lowered the chance of death by roughly fifty percent. On the flip side, sitting seven hours or more raised the risk of death by about sixty‑five percent for all causes and by about seventy‑four percent for premature death. Each extra bit of sitting increased risk by about thirty percent.

The best outcome appeared in the group that sat less than seven hours and got high activity; their risk of death was roughly one‑third of the reference group. Statistical models showed a straight‑line increase in risk with more sitting, while the benefit of activity rose quickly at first and then leveled off. Checks across different subgroups gave similar results, suggesting the patterns are solid.