150 minutes a week is about than 22 minutes a day. Like 11 minutes twice a day. This looks like a really low effort to rid oneself of the risk of early decline.
As you might guess, their outcomes improved greatly.
I think people get this image in their head that someone who doesn't exercise ever is this comically fat unemployed person when in reality it's the average office worker who isn't fitness minded. A good chunk of HN users wouldn't be getting 15 minutes of exercise a day.
Can you link evidence for this? I stay at 12% year around as male (confirmed via DEXA)
I look at the 150 minute recommendation and worry that it’s so high a lot of people will just say forget it (similar to what I’ve seen about sodium and sugar guidance).
jsw97•1h ago
The problem with this is that people are sedentary or active for a variety of health-related reasons that are not captured in any screen (esp. the crude one used in this study). As a predictive study, this is fine, sedentarism predicts a lot of bad things. But it doesn't, on its own, suggest that becoming active is helpful. See also grip strength and mortality.
adam_arthur•34m ago
But there's an enormous volume of evidence that exercise, especially intense exercise, is better for health than any other intervention, including more sleep, quality of diet, pills+supplements (except those that treat an active illness/disease of course).
There's even compelling data showing that moderate drinkers who exercise live longer than non-drinkers who don't exercise. Even given that Alcohol is a powerful carcinogen.
The only thing proven more effective than exercise is weight loss really, if starting from high bodyfat levels.
(Anything above ~15% bodyfat in men has negative implications for lifespan, and ~30% for women; when reviewed at scale)
makeitdouble•23m ago
That sounds like a study that is pretty tough to control for, especially long term and at scale.
You'd need to find subjects that are provably capable of sustaining intense exercise as a habit if they wanted to but never did, and won't either for the years you'll be following them.
That won't work in the reverse, as people can be consciously or not self adjusting based on the health conditions you're trying to check.
PS: I'm remembering a friend who never liked running, but tried pretty hard after being pestered by their doctor and family, to discover that their knees are just not good and their whole lineage hated running for a reason. Intense exercise can be anything else, but people won't know their real health limitations until they actually do it for a while.
adam_arthur•19m ago
That intense exercise is good, and even very good for you, is proven as far as reasonably possible given that we can't run deterministically controlled experiments.
More evidence may come out that adds nuance, but the effect size is so large that it becomes obvious in the data just from observation.
You can cycle or stationary bike if you have bad knees. There are plenty of exercises that are intense but easy on the joints.
makeitdouble•3m ago
Looking around, the simplest wording I get:
> the intensity must be high. This means that you need to really exert yourself so you get out of breath. [https://norwegianscitechnews.com/2026/05/exercise-a-very-lit...]
So if climbing the stairs gets someone out of breath it's intense (and I also see how getting to your limits, whatever they are, can help)