A new study has revealed that people who exercise for just one or two days in the week lower their risk of dying by 30 percent, just as people who exercise three or more times in a week. Scientists found that the risk of cardiovascular death is almost similar for weekend and regular exercisers, which is about 40 percent lower than inactive adults.

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Health experts advise people to engage in 150 minutes of moderate physical activity per week, or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise. But no conclusion had been reached till now about how often a person needs to exercise, or whether activities should be done daily or condensed into shorter periods.

The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Internal Medicine, surveyed nearly 64,000 people and grouped them into four categories: regularly active, weekend warriors, insufficiently active, and inactive.

Results of the study

All three groups of exercising people fared better than inactive people.

Weekend warriors (those who exercised just one or two days a week) had a 30 percent lower risk of dying, 40 percent lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, and 18 percent lower risk of dying from cancer compared to inactive adults.

Similar effects were seen among insufficiently active people (who got less than the recommended amount), and regularly active people (who exercised three or more days per week). Compared with the inactive participants, the risk of dying from any cause among insufficiently active participants was 31 percent lower, and 35 percent lower in regularly active participants.

Emmanuel Stamatakis, the lead author of the study and an associate professor at the University of Sydney, said that it is a very encouraging news that being physically active on just one or two days a week is associated with a lower risk of death. However, he advised that for optimal health benefits from physical activity, one should meet and exceed the physical activity recommendations.