Just 12 Minutes of Exercise Boosts Fat-Burning Metabolites, Harvard Study Finds
The sad reality of wanting to stay healthy is that not all of us can spare an hour a day for exercise. Often, living room workouts, backyard WODs and kitchen mobility sessions are squeezed into lunch breaks or as a quick blast when our schedule permits. Even during a time when most of us are spending more hours at home, finding the minutes to get a sweat on is a challenge in itself, never mind the actual workout.
However, if a new Harvard-affiliated research paper by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) is to be believed, short workouts don't equate to a failed workout.
As detailed in a paper published in Circulation, the research team found that approximately 12 minutes of cardiopulmonary exercise was enough to affect around 80 per cent of circulating metabolites—the substance that's necessary for a functioning metabolism—as well as various biological pathways that are linked to other health outcomes, including insulin resistance, stress, inflammation, longevity and more.
This data was drawn from 411 middle-aged men and women who were studied immediately after 12 minutes of vigorous exercise.
"What was striking to us was the effects a brief bout of exercise can have on the circulating levels of metabolites that govern such key bodily functions as insulin resistance, oxidative stress, vascular reactivity, inflammation, and longevity," said Gregory Lewis, investigator and section head of Heart Failure at MGH, the senior author of the study."
"Our study found that different metabolites tracked with different physiologic responses to exercise, and might therefore provide unique signatures in the bloodstream that reveal if a person is physically fit, much the way current blood tests determine how well the kidney and liver are functioning,” commented Matthew Nayor of the Heart Failure and Transplantation Section in the Division of Cardiology at MGH. "Lower levels of DMGV, for example, could signify higher levels of fitness."
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