Just one minute of running a day may boost bone health: Study

There's a clear link between high-intensity, weight-bearing exercise and better bone health in women

Ladies, take note! As little as one minute of daily high-intensity, weight-bearing exercise, such a run or a jog, can boost your bone health, a study suggests.

Researchers from the University of Exeter and University of Leicester in the UK found that those who did "brief bursts" of high-intensity, weight-bearing activity equivalent to a medium-paced run for pre-menopausal women, or a slow jog for post-menopausal women, had better bone health.

Researchers found that women who on average did 60-120 seconds of high-intensity, weight-bearing activity per day had four per cent better bone health than those who did less than a minute.

"We don't yet know whether it is better to accumulate this small amount of exercise in bits throughout each day or all at once, and whether a slightly longer bout of exercise on one or two days per week is just as good as 1-2 minutes a day," said Victoria Stiles, from University of Exeter.

"But there's a clear link between this kind of high- intensity, weight-bearing exercise and better bone health in women," Stiles said.

Researchers looked at data on more than 2,500 women, and compared activity levels (measured by wrist-worn monitors) with bone health (measured by an ultrasound scan of heel bone).

Along with finding four per cent better bone health among women who did one to two minutes of high-intensity, weight- bearing exercise, researchers found six per cent better bone health among those who did more than two minutes a day.

The study was published in the International Journal of Epidemiology.