To achieve this goal, stick-on electrodes with wires were used for the collection of R-R interval data but in some individuals, the electrodes cause skin irritation and this selleck chemicals Idelalisib makes it difficult to get long recordings. Findings in relation to other studies The majority of previous studies including large study populations used accelerometers or pedometers for the objective assessment of physical activity. These methods provide rough estimates of the intensity of physical activity.
We used beat-to-beat R-R interval data which allows for more accurate estimations of the intensity of physical activity, but it also has limitations when comparing our results to previous results. The age-associated and BMI-associated declines in the amount of physical activity
observed in our study are in agreement with the results of the studies using accelerometers.14 17 18 31 In our study, the amount of VPA was very low, especially among older women, and overweight and obese women; similar results have been reported in previous studies that used accelerometers.14 17 31 Our results showing the clear difference between workdays and days off in the hourly distribution of physical activity are in accordance with previous studies.18 In addition, we observed that the proportions of overweight and obese participants fulfilling the aerobic physical activity recommendations are lower than the proportion of normal weight participants. Previous studies obtained similar results—showing that among obese individuals, especially, the
amount of VPA is low compared with the current recommendation.14 16 18 Previous questionnaire-based studies in Finland have reported that approximately one-quarter32 to one-half33 of the working-age adults (men and women) fulfil the current aerobic physical activity recommendation. Our objectively measured results (men 54%, women 33%) covering work-related and leisure physical activities are roughly in line with these results. Overall, most of the associations in our study are similar to previous population-based studies that used accelerometers. However, our method measures cardiorespiratory loading more directly than the methods based on motion sensors. The amount of physical activity calculated from the bouts lasting ≥10 min should be used when determining who meets the current physical activity recommendations.3 We calculated the amount of MVPA and VPA in two different ways that reflect different aspects of physical activity. Batimastat The amount of physical activity calculated from single 1 min bouts throughout the measurement period may be considered to reflect daily activities, rather than fitness-enhancing exercise, as this method also takes into account very short bouts of physical activity, such as climbing stairs. Interestingly, the proportion of participants fulfilling the aerobic physical activity recommendation is doubled when shorter bouts are included in the calculation (table 6).