VILPA a promising cancer prevention tool for inactive adults

Small amounts of vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity (VILPA) were associated with lower incident cancer risk in non-exercising adults, findings from the UK Biobank Accelerometry Study suggest.

“To our knowledge, no study has evaluated the associations of VILPA with cancer incidence,” said the researchers. “The findings of this large cohort study suggest that 3–4 minutes of VILPA per day may be associated with decreased cancer incidence risk.”

VPA vs VILPA

Vigorous physical activity (VPA) is a time-efficient way to achieve the recommended physical activity for cancer prevention. However, the structured and longer bouts required to perform VPA (ie, through conventional exercises) may not be too appealing or accessible to many individuals. [Br J Sports Med 2017;51:812-817]

Hence, the team sought to evaluate the dose-response association of device-measured daily VILPA with incident cancer, and to estimate the minimum dose required for a risk reduction of 50-percent of the maximum reduction.

VILPA entails brief and sporadic (eg, up to 1–2 minutes) bouts of VPA while performing activities of daily living (eg, carrying shopping bags, walking uphill climbing stairs). [Sports Med 2021;51:1-10] “VILPA cannot be captured by questionnaires; therefore, wearable trackers are essential,” the researchers noted.

The researchers prospectively evaluated 22,398 self-reported non-exercising adults from the UK Biobank Accelerometry Study subsample (mean age 62.0 years, 55 percent women). [JAMA Oncol 2023;9:1255-1259]

During a mean follow-up of 6.7 years, a total of 2,356 incident cancer events occurred (1,084 in physical activity-related cancer sites). A little over 90 percent of VILPA was accrued in bouts of up to a minute, while 97 percent of all bouts lasted up to 2 minutes.

Compared with no VILPA, a minimum VILPA dose of 3.4–3.6 minutes per day was associated with a 17–18 percent reduction in total incident cancer risk, while a median VILPA dose of 4.5 minutes per day was tied to a 31–32 percent reduction in physical activity-related cancer incidence.

The results were similar for VILPA bout of up to 2 minutes.

Three minutes may be all it takes to achieve benefit

In summary, the researchers found that daily VILPA duration was inversely associated with incident cancer risk in a near-linear manner, with steeper dose-response for PA-related cancers. “[As little as 3–4] minutes of VILPA daily was associated with a substantially lower cancer risk,” the researchers said.

Evidence shows that small doses of intermittent VPA may lead to rapid improvements in cardiorespiratory fitness. [Med Sci Sports Exerc 2017;49:298-307] “[This provides] a potential biological explanation for the associations with incident cancer mortality observed in the present findings,” said the researchers.

As such, VILPA may be a promising intervention for cancer prevention among individuals who are unable or unmotivated to exercise during their leisure time, they added.

“Long-term trials with cancer-related biomarker outcomes and well-designed cohort studies with wearable devices should further explore the potential of VILPA as a cancer prevention intervention for non-exercising individuals and for those who find structured exercise unappealing,” the researchers concluded.