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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   2158 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for December 27, 2023

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New Swedish twin study just dropped[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10274991/

Maybe exercising doesn't matter all that much?

Results

We identified four classes of long-term LTPA: sedentary, moderately active, active and highly active. Although biological ageing was accelerated in sedentary and highly active classes, after adjusting for other lifestyle-related factors, the associations mainly attenuated. Physically active classes had a maximum 7% lower risk of total mortality over the sedentary class, but this association was consistent only in the short term and could largely be accounted for by familial factors. LTPA exhibited less favourable associations when prevalent diseases were exclusion criteria rather than covariate.

Conclusion

Being active may reflect a healthy phenotype instead of causally reducing mortality.

I both want this to be true (because it would be a relief, in a way) but also don't (because it means your mortality isn't really modifiable by exercise). Any good analyses/critiques available?

  1. On Jun 5th 2023. So not that new.

after adjusting for other lifestyle-related factors

Same problem as ever. Controlling away things that are mediated by exercise ensures that they aren't actually testing what the headline says they're testing.

In any case, the main reason to be fit isn't to maximize the length of life, but to improve quality-of-life. Even if I became convinced that a sedentary individual, flabby and skinny-fat though they may be, does not suffer a reduced length of life, I would still suggest that being fit improves quality-of-life significantly.

I don't fully understand all of the lingo being used in the paper, but it looks like the lifestyle factors they controlled for are smoking and alcohol use. Isn't that the right thing to do to here?

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