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Original article
Effect of moderate-intensity exercise bouts lasting <10 minutes on body composition in sedentary Kenyan adults aged ≥50 years
  1. Karani Magutah1,2,
  2. Nilesh B Patel2,
  3. Kihumbu Thairu2
  1. 1 Department of Medical Physiology, Moi University, Eldoret, Kenya
  2. 2 Department of Medical Physiology, University of Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya
  1. Correspondence to Dr Karani Magutah; kmagutah{at}yahoo.com

Abstract

Background Sedentary lifestyles and related morbidities are rising among adults despite existing exercise recommendations. Appealing exercise regimes yielding similar/better body composition should be sought.

Objective We investigated the effect of moderate-intensity exercise bouts of <10 min on body composition in previously sedentary adults.

Methods This unblinded study enrolled 53 healthy sedentary volunteers aged ≥50 years, randomised into one of two gender-balanced exercise interventions: (1) male and (2) female short-duration bouts (MS, n=14; FS, n = 13), and (3) male and (4) female long-duration bouts (ML, n=13; FL, n=13). Short-duration bouts entailed 5–10 min of jogging thrice daily; long-duration bouts, 30–60 min 3–5 days weekly. Body composition was determined at recruitment and 8-weekly thereafter, for 24 weeks.

Results At baseline, 14.3% of MS, 38.5% of ML, 92.3% of FS and 69.2% of FL were obese, dropping to 7.1%, 15.4%, 61.5% and 30.8%, respectively. For waist:height ratio, 64.3 % of MS, 76.9% of ML, 100% of FS and 84.6.3% of FL had ratios >0.5, dropping to 42.9%, 30.8%, 92.9% and 26.2%, respectively. While baseline MS and ML waist:hip ratio (WHR) ≥0.9 were 64.3% and 69.2%, respectively, they correspondingly dropped to 23.1% and 21.4%. The FS and FL with WHR ≥0.85 dropped from 46.2% to 15.4% and from 30.8% to 7.7%, respectively. Body composition variables improved for both sexes (all p <0.05) and mean change between exercise regimes was comparable for both sexes.

Conclusion In equal cumulative times, moderate-intensity exercise bouts lasting <10 min are comparable with current 30–60 min bouts in body composition modification for adults of ≥50 years.

  • cardio-respiratory fitness
  • sedentary
  • exercise bouts
  • body composition

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjsem-2018-000403

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors KM helped in designing the protocol, data collection, analysis and writing. Both KT and NBP helped in designing the protocol and writing the manuscript.

    • Funding This research was supported by the Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa (CARTA). CARTA is jointly led by the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) and the University of the Witwatersrand and funded by the Wellcome Trust (UK) (grant no. 087547/Z/08/Z), the Department for International Development (DfID) under the Development Partnerships in Higher Education (DelPHE), the Carnegie Corporation of New York (grant no. B 8606), the Ford Foundation (grant no. 1100–0399), Google.org (grant no. 191994), Sida (grant no. 54100029), MacArthur Foundation (grant no. 10-95915-000-INP) and British Council.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent Obtained.

    • Ethics approval Joint institutional research ethics body at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital/Moi University (approval no. IREC 0001242).

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.