Nearly half of U.S. adults fail to get enough exercise.
Experts recommend 75 to 150 minutes of physical activity each week, citing well-established benefits that include longer life, lower obesity rates and a reduced risk of chronic disease.
Yet finding time to exercise around work and family commitments can seem almost impossible. Spending hours at the gym may also place additional strain on the body.
Now, researchers have identified a three-minute burst of intense exercise that could support longevity by promoting disease protection and weight loss more effectively than 90 minutes of moderate activity such as cycling or swimming.
In a new study, researchers found that just three minutes of sprinting prompted molecular changes in the body. The activity increased beneficial proteins in the blood that have been linked to reduced stress on the heart and improved fat metabolism.
Researchers in New York City conducted an eight-week trial comparing participants who completed three to four weekly sprint-cycling sessions, each lasting three minutes, with people who cycled moderately for 90 minutes.
The brief sprints immediately produced a surge in more than 200 proteins known as exerkines. These proteins have been associated with blood-vessel growth, tissue repair and hormonal signals involved in breaking down fat.
By contrast, only a small proportion of proteins changed noticeably after 90 minutes of moderate cycling, and some beneficial proteins did not appear until three hours later.
A recent study found that just three minutes of sprinting can trigger molecular changes in the body, increasing helpful proteins in the blood linked to heart health and protection against obesity and diabetes
Although the study focused on cycling sprints, the researchers said similar bursts of intense activity could include running, climbing stairs or performing bodyweight movements such as burpees.
Brief, vigorous exercise is thought to raise the heart rate rapidly, allowing the heart to pump blood more forcefully and deliver oxygen to working muscles. This may help the body burn calories more quickly, cope with physical stress and recover more efficiently, potentially reducing injury risk.
Longer sessions of moderate exercise, meanwhile, can create more wear and tear, deplete energy stores and contribute to fatigue, inflammation and tissue damage.
‘What’s exciting here is that just a few minutes of intense exercise can trigger a significant molecular response,’ Paul Cohen, the study’s lead author and head of the Weslie R and William H Janeway Laboratory of Molecular Metabolism at Rockefeller University in New York City, said.
‘And we still see it after eight weeks of training, which tells us this response isn’t simply a product of the body struggling to keep up with unfamiliar stress. It may be that the responses we observed are intrinsic to intense exercise.’
The study, published in Cell Reports Medicine, involved 19 participants divided into two groups.
Ten participants completed six all-out cycling sprints lasting 30 seconds each, with four minutes of recovery after every sprint. The other nine participants cycled continuously at moderate intensity for 90 minutes.
The researchers collected blood samples from both groups and examined how the workouts affected protein levels immediately afterward.
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They identified 2,884 proteins in the blood. Acting as tiny messengers, these proteins carry signals throughout the body and can influence blood vessels, muscles, hormones and metabolism.
Immediately after the sprint sessions, nearly 25 percent of the proteins had changed. Many were linked to lower risks of obesity, type 2 diabetes and slower biological aging. Of the 33 proteins associated with reduced disease risk, 32 responded to sprinting.
By comparison, 90 minutes of moderate cycling altered fewer than 0.25 percent of the proteins immediately after the workout.
Some proteins linked to lower metabolic disease risk appeared later, but it took about three hours. Of the 33 proteins associated with lower risk, only three were altered after moderate exercise.
The findings do not mean moderate exercise was ineffective. Instead, its effects appeared to unfold more slowly
Researchers say the rapid changes may be driven in part by ectodomain shedding, a process in which cells release pieces of proteins into the bloodstream, allowing them to quickly send signals around the body.
Sprinting also appeared to send a stronger, faster signal to fat cells through the bloodstream.
Exercise is already known to send signals from working muscles to other parts of the body. But when researchers exposed human fat cells to blood taken after sprinting, the cells showed major changes in how they processed fuel and responded to hormones.
The findings could help explain how intense exercise affects fat metabolism.
Blood taken after moderate cycling caused much smaller changes in the fat cells.
The findings could help explain how intense exercise affects metabolism and how the body uses and stores energy. While the study did not measure weight loss, these changes could potentially play a role in the metabolic benefits of exercise linked to a longer lifespan.
Since this study was limited to 19 subjects, researchers then compared the proteins that changed after exercise with health data from more than 53,000 people in a UK health research database.
Many of these proteins were associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. More than 25 percent were associated with slow biological aging.
But the findings do not mean moderate exercise was ineffective. Instead, its effects appeared to unfold more slowly.
Researchers cautioned that more work is needed to understand how these molecular changes translate into long-term benefits. The study analyzed the body’s short-term response to different types of exercise, meaning it cannot prove that the proteins released after sprinting directly prevent obesity, diabetes or other diseases.
‘It’s well appreciated that different intensities of exercise stimulate distinct body-wide adaptations,’ Luke Olsen, study author and postdoctoral fellow at Rockefeller University, said. ‘However, the molecular mechanisms linking these intensity-dependent adaptations have remained largely elusive.
‘Our work suggests that exerkines – proteins and metabolites released into the bloodstream following exercise – are highly sensitive to exercise intensity and may be the key mediators of the health-promoting effects of short bursts of vigorous exercise.’