Research
Low leisure-based sitting time and being physically active were associated with reduced odds of death and diabetes in people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: a cohort study

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jphys.2018.02.007Get rights and content
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Abstract

Questions

In people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), are activity phenotypes (based on physical activity and recreational screen time) associated with mortality and cardiometabolic risk factors?

Design

Cohort study.

Participants

People with COPD aged  40 years and who were current or ex-smokers were identified from the 2003 Scottish Health Survey.

Outcome measures

Data were collected regarding demographics, anthropometric measurements, medical history, physical activity, sedentary behaviour, health outcomes, and mortality.

Analysis

Participants were categorised into one of the following activity phenotypes: ‘couch potatoes’ were those who were insufficiently active with high leisure-based sitting time and/or no domestic physical activity; ‘light movers’ were insufficiently active with some domestic physical activity; ‘sedentary exercisers’ were sufficiently active with high leisure-based sitting time; and ‘busy bees’ were sufficiently active with low leisure-based sitting time. ‘Sufficiently active’ was defined as adhering to physical activity (PA) recommendations of  7.5 metabolic equivalent (MET) hours/week. ‘Low leisure-based sitting time’ was defined as  200 minutes of recreational screen time/day.

Results

The 584 participants had a mean age of 64 years (SD 12) and 52% were male. Over 5.5 years (SD 1.3) of follow-up, there were 81 all-cause deaths from 433 COPD participants with available data. Compared to the ‘couch potatoes’, there was a reduced risk of all-cause mortality in the ‘busy bees’ (Hazard Ratio 0.26, 95% CI 0.11 to 0.65) with a trend towards a reduction in mortality risk in the other phenotypes. The odds of diabetes were lower in the ‘busy bees’ compared to the ‘couch potatoes’ (OR 0.14, 95% CI 0.03 to 0.67).

Conclusions

Adhering to physical activity guidelines and keeping leisure-based sitting time low had a mortality benefit and lowered the odds of diabetes in people with COPD. [McKeough Z, Cheng SWM, Alison J, Jenkins C, Hamer M, Stamatakis E (2018) Low leisure-based sitting time and being physically active were associated with reduced odds of death and diabetes in people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: a cohort study. Journal of Physiotherapy 64: 114–120]

Key words

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
Physical activity
Sedentary behaviour
Mortality
Epidemiology

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