Grab an "Activity Snack"

In this week's Rundown, Apple drops the watch requirement for Fitness Plus, "activity snacks" are one way to maintain muscle mass and sleeping five hours or less per night may lead to problems.

The Rundown

No Watch Needed. Starting October 24th, anyone with an iPhone updated to iOS 16.1 can subscribe to Apple’s Fitness Plus. Previously, Fitness Plus required an Apple Watch Series 3 or later, plus an iPhone, plus a yearly subscription. Now, iPhone-only subscribers will have full access to Plus’ catalog.

Without a watch, you won’t see some metrics like real-time heart rate but you will see on-screen trainer guidance, interval timing and estimated calories burned. You’ll also get credit toward closing your Move ring.

New content includes an Artist Spotlight series featuring Taylor Swift’s latest album, Midnights, a new Yoga for Every Runner program and more Time to Walk guests.

“Activity Snacks.” A growing body of work points to the negative health impacts of sitting all day and how we can regulate the risks. A new study has added to the field, this time looking at the metabolic effects of “activity snacks,” or getting up and moving for a few minutes of exercise, particularly after we eat. It showed that even a two-minute walk can improve sugar processing after a meal and help maintain muscle mass.

For the study, a team from the University of Toronto focused on the loss of muscle mass and muscle quality in people who have sedentary lifestyles. Muscle mass and quality is related to the function of myofibrillar proteins, which the body makes from amino acids.

The research investigated what effects sitting might have on the body’s ability to use dietary amino acids for the synthesis of myofibrillar proteins.

Twelve people were made to sit for more than seven hours. Every 30 minutes, some of them had to get up for short spurts of walking or body weight squatting. Those engaging in what the team called “activity snacks” showed more ability to use amino acids from food for synthesis of myofibrillar proteins.

Lead author of the study, Daniel Moore says the results “highlight that moving after we eat can make our nutrition better and could allow more dietary amino acids from smaller meals or lower quality types of protein to be used more efficiently.”

Sleep 5+. If you’re over 50 and sleeping five hours or less a night, your long-term health could be in trouble, says a new study. Researchers from University College London and Universite Paris Cite warn that this amount of sleep could put people aged 50 and older at a higher risk of developing multiple chronic diseases including heart disease, depression, cancer or diabetes.

Published in the journal PLOS Medicine, the peer reviewed research looked at just under 8,000 British civil service workers over an average 25-year period, at age 50, 60 and 70.

It found that people aged 50 who slept five hours or less were 30 percent more likely to be diagnosed with multiple chronic diseases over time, compared with their peers who slept seven hours. The risk rose to 32 percent for those aged 60 and at age 70, it reached 40 percent.

Responding to the findings, some experts caution that there is no one size fits all number of hours because there is individual variation in sleep habits and duration. The real test, they suggest, is how well you perform when you are awake.

Replay

This week’s vintage moment in sports culture is brought to you by the November 1966 version of “Mama said knock you out.” Muhammad Ali defends his heavyweight title against Cleveland Williams in three rounds at the Houston Astrodome. Photo: Neill Leifler.