Moderate to vigorous physical activity is a strong predictor of heart health. University of Arizona research shows that indigenous hunter-gatherers in Tanzania’s high level of physical activity means their risk of heart disease is low.
University of Arizona anthropologist David Raichlen and colleagues from Yale University and Hunter College studied the Hadza people in East Africa for several years. They wanted to reconstruct physical activity patterns during human physiological evolution.
The Hadza study participants wore heart-rate monitors and GPS trackers that measured how far and fast they traveled in a day.
“Hunter-gatherers engage in a pretty large amount of physical activity, something on the order of 14 times as much physical activity as we do in more industrialized societies," Raichlen said.
He says the physical activity levels are associated with reduced cardiovascular disease risk factors in the people studied.
"I hope that what our research does is it provide some of the context for why it is so beneficial for us and hopefully that provides yet another layer of motivation for people to get up from their desks and move," he said.
Raichlen says as people age, a reduction in activity levels isn’t universal and we should keep moving.