Physical activity and health in mid-age and older Australian women
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Discussion
These new data from the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health add to the evidence which supports our understanding of the relationships between physical activity and specific health outcomes in mid-age and older women.
Our analyses did not show any relationships between physical activity and menopausal symptoms, or between physical activity and the development of new arthritis symptoms or arthritis in mid-age women. Previous findings have shown equivocal findings on the relationship between activity and both menopausal symptoms and the onset of arthritis in mid-age women.
However, among the older women, the findings confirm those reported in Part Two of this report, which suggest that levels of physical activity lower than those recommended in the current guidelines may be protective against the development of some health problems. For example, 75+ minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity/week was protective against the onset of stiff or painful joints and even lower levels of activity showed benefits in terms of lower anxiety and depression scores in the older women.
In contrast, over a three year period, higher levels of physical activity were protective against the onset of arthritis, and were associated with reduced risk of falls and of broken or fractured bones in older women who had not had a recent adverse life event or previous serious fall injury. We were not able to confirm the Framingham finding of increased risk of arthritis with higher levels of physical activity in the older women (Felsen et al, 1997).
These data confirm the hypothesis raised in Section 2 of this report, that the 'dose' of physical activity required for the primary prevention of health problems in mid- and older-age women, may not be the same for every health problem.
Overall, our findings showed that general physical and psychological well-being were significantly higher in mid-age and older women who were consistently active (ie meeting guidelines) than in those who were consistently sedentary. This is not surprising. Mean scores for physical and mental wellbeing were, however, also significantly higher in mid-age and older women who were consistently 'low' active (ie reporting 75-150 minutes a week) than in those who were consistently sedentary, suggesting that, for mid-age and older women, there may be benefits even from low levels of physical activity. In other words, doing something is better than doing nothing.
Another unexpected finding was that levels of physical and mental well-being were as high among women whose physical activity increased over time (from any baseline level), as they were among the women who were consistently active. This indicates that, for mid-age and older women, it is never too late to increase physical activity in order to gain health benefit.
The ALSWH data were also used to show, for the first time in Australia, that physical activity is inversely associated with healthcare costs in both mid-age and older women. In both the mid-age and older cohorts health care costs were increased by about one quarter in the sedentary women. As the greatest differences were seen between sedentary women and those doing low levels of activity, it is hypothesised that there could be significant cost savings for both women and the health care system if all sedentary mid-age and older women could be persuaded to do as little as 75 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity each week.