Browse the evidence

Replacing 30 minutes of sedentary time with moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) significantly reduces cancer mortality risk by 31%, while replacing it with light-intensity physical activity (LIPA) reduces risk by 8%.

You don't need to run marathons to lower your cancer mortality risk. Simply swapping 30 minutes of sitting for 30 minutes of moderate exercise (like brisk walking) cuts your risk by 31%. Even swapping that time for light activity (like standing or slow walking) cuts risk by 8%. Prioritize breaking up sitting time with any form of movement.

Brief physician counseling using tailored computer-generated self-management goals significantly increases physical activity and weight loss in overweight patients with type 2 diabetes compared to standard care.

If you have type 2 diabetes and are overweight, ask your doctor for a structured lifestyle counseling program that uses a computer assessment to set specific physical activity and diet goals. Review these goals with your doctor every 3 months. This structured approach is more effective than just receiving pamphlets or general advice, leading to higher rates of weight loss and increased physical activity.

Personalized nutrition recommendations must be derived from validated models and algorithms that demonstrate acceptable predictive performance on external populations.

If you use an app or service that gives you diet advice based on algorithms, check if they validate their models on diverse groups of people. This ensures the advice is likely to be accurate for you.

A web-based behavioral weight management program (POWeR+) combined with brief remote nurse support (emails/phone calls) produces clinically significant weight loss and maintenance in primary care patients, achieving results comparable to intensive face-to-face interventions without increasing health service costs.

Use a structured web-based weight management program that teaches behavioral skills and allows you to choose your diet type. Supplement this with brief, remote check-ins (emails or short phone calls) from a nurse or health coach. This approach is effective for losing and maintaining weight, costs the same as standard care, and is less burdensome than frequent in-person visits.

A multi-component workplace intervention targeting sitting time reduction through environmental modification (sit-stand workstations) and behavioral coaching significantly reduces workplace sitting time and prolonged sitting bouts in office workers.

To reduce sitting time, use a sit-stand workstation and aim to interrupt prolonged sitting every 30 minutes. Combine this with organizational support (like management encouragement) and personal goal-setting to maintain the habit. Monitor your posture and switch between sitting and standing to avoid discomfort.

Interrupting prolonged sitting with frequent stand-up transitions significantly improves cardio-metabolic biomarkers (BMI, waist circumference, HDL, triglycerides, and glucose) compared to accumulating the same total sitting time in long, uninterrupted bouts.

If you must sit, do not sit for more than 30 minutes at a time. Stand up and move briefly (sit-stand transitions) as often as possible. This pattern of interrupting sitting is more beneficial for your waistline, cholesterol, and blood sugar than simply having the same total amount of sitting time but doing it in long, uninterrupted blocks.

Physical activity interventions, particularly those combining resistance and balance training, significantly improve physical performance outcomes (gait speed, strength, mobility) in pre-frail and frail older adults.

Engage in supervised physical activity, specifically focusing on resistance and balance exercises. This approach has been shown to significantly improve gait speed, strength, and mobility in pre-frail and frail older adults. Supervision is key to ensuring safety and adherence, which are critical for success.

Participatory workplace interventions that modify work practices (e.g., active workstations, ergonomics, pedometer challenges) significantly reduce total sedentary time and increase break frequency in office workers.

To reduce sedentary time, implement participatory workplace interventions that allow workers to modify their work practices. This can include using active workstations (standing/walking desks) for short periods (building up to 30 mins), using pedometers to encourage walking during breaks, or adjusting ergonomics to encourage 'active sitting'. The key is involving workers in designing these changes to ensure they fit the specific workflow and organizational culture.

Engaging in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) for at least 150 minutes per week is associated with a significantly higher probability of successful ageing in adults aged 60-83, regardless of whether the activity is accumulated in short bouts (<10 minutes) or long bouts (≥10 minutes).

To support successful ageing, aim for at least 150 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity each week. You do not need to exercise in continuous 10-minute blocks; short bursts of activity (even under 10 minutes) provide similar benefits. Focus on accumulating this total time through any means possible, such as brisk walking, gardening, or household chores.

Adding structured, dietitian-led nutrition education group sessions to internet-based wellness information and exercise access provides a short-term (3-month) weight loss advantage in overweight women, but this advantage disappears by 6 months if session frequency is reduced to monthly.

If you are using a workplace wellness program, do not skip the in-person or live coaching sessions, especially in the first three months. The study shows that the 'extra' help from a dietitian and group accountability provides a significant head start (an extra 1.2 kg of weight loss at 3 months). However, if your program switches you to monthly check-ins after 3 months, expect your results to plateau to the same level as people who just use the website alone. To keep losing weight, you likely need to maintain higher engagement (weekly sessions) or find ways to self-monitor intensely if you cannot attend weekly.

Breastfeeding has a probable protective effect against childhood obesity, with a dose-response relationship observed in some studies.

Breastfeeding is recommended for its probable protective effect against childhood obesity. The benefit appears to increase with the duration of breastfeeding. Public health efforts should support breastfeeding, but recognize that other factors (like maternal BMI) also play a role.

Food companies target children through marketing in schools and 'pouring rights' agreements to establish lifelong consumption habits.

Advocate for healthier school food policies and limit access to sugary drinks and processed snacks at home. Teach children to recognize marketing tactics.

Subsidizing healthy foods (specifically fruits and vegetables) by 10% increases their consumption by approximately 14%, and this price reduction is associated with a modest reduction in BMI.

To increase fruit and vegetable intake, policy-level subsidies that lower their price by 10% are effective. This economic lever directly drives a 14% increase in consumption. For individuals, this suggests that programs offering discounts on produce (like farmers market vouchers) are a viable strategy to improve diet quality.

Taxing sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) and fast food by 10% decreases their consumption by approximately 6-7%, though the effect on BMI is not statistically significant.

Implementing a 10% tax on SSBs and fast food reduces consumption by 6-7%. However, this alone does not significantly lower BMI. To maximize health impact, tax revenue should be used to subsidize healthy foods, leveraging the larger effect size of subsidies.

Women with type 2 diabetes are undertreated for cardiovascular risk factors (HbA1c, blood pressure, lipids) compared to men, contributing to worse outcomes.

Women with diabetes often receive less aggressive treatment for blood pressure and cholesterol than men. If you are a woman, advocate for yourself to ensure your risk factors are treated as aggressively as a man's, as undertreatment contributes to higher heart disease risk.

Obese individuals exhibit increased activation in reward-related brain areas (insula, orbitofrontal cortex) in response to visual high-calorie food cues compared to healthy-weight individuals, particularly when satiated.

If you are obese, your brain may react more strongly to seeing high-calorie foods than a healthy-weight person's brain, even when you are full. This is a biological difference in reward processing, not a lack of willpower. To manage this, focus on reducing exposure to visual food cues (e.g., keeping junk food out of sight) rather than relying solely on willpower during moments of temptation.

Food pricing strategies, specifically taxes on unhealthy foods and subsidies for healthy foods, effectively alter consumption, with stronger effects on lower-income populations.

To improve diet at scale, use financial incentives. Subsidize healthy options (like fruits/veg) to make them cheaper, and tax unhealthy options (like sugary drinks) to make them more expensive. This works best when targeted at lower-income groups who are more price-sensitive.

School procurement policies that restrict unhealthy competitive foods and beverages are effective in reducing student intake and obesity prevalence.

Schools can significantly reduce childhood obesity by banning sugary drinks and limiting high-fat/sugar snacks in cafeterias and vending machines. Government-mandated policies are more effective than voluntary ones.

A theory-based group weight loss intervention significantly increases dietary fiber intake, which mediates weight loss, but fails to significantly increase objectively measured physical activity despite improvements in self-efficacy and social support for activity.

This structured group program helps people increase fiber intake, which leads to weight loss. However, it does not significantly increase physical activity levels, even though participants feel more confident and supported in doing so. For weight loss, prioritize increasing fiber intake through this structured approach rather than relying solely on increased physical activity.

Improvements in self-efficacy and understanding of the behavior change process mediate successful dietary change through engagement in coping planning and self-monitoring, but these same mediators do not translate to increased physical activity.

To change diet, focus on building self-efficacy and understanding the process, then use coping planning and self-monitoring. These steps may not work for increasing physical activity, suggesting different strategies are needed for exercise.

Web-based interventions targeting cardiovascular risk factors in middle-aged and older adults produce modest, statistically significant improvements in intermediate biomarkers (blood pressure, HbA1c, LDL, weight, physical activity), but these effects are smaller than those of traditional care and do not translate to a reduction in incident cardiovascular disease events.

If you are over 50 and have cardiovascular risk factors, using a web-based health program can help you lower your blood pressure, cholesterol, and weight, and get more active. However, the benefits are modest and tend to fade after a year unless you combine the online tool with regular support from a nurse or doctor. It is not a substitute for clinical care in preventing heart attacks or strokes, but it is a useful tool for managing risk factors.

Implementing a 30% financial subsidy on fruits and vegetables through Medicare and Medicaid is highly cost-effective, preventing cardiovascular disease events and generating substantial quality-adjusted life years (QALYs).

For policymakers, subsidizing fruits and vegetables by 30% for Medicare and Medicaid recipients is a highly cost-effective strategy to improve public health. The model predicts significant reductions in cardiovascular disease and diabetes cases, leading to substantial long-term healthcare cost savings that offset the initial subsidy costs.

A 30% financial subsidy on a broader basket of healthful foods (including fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, seafood, and plant oils) is more cost-effective than a fruit and vegetable-only subsidy, preventing more cardiovascular and diabetes cases.

For policymakers, expanding the subsidy to include whole grains, nuts, seafood, and plant oils alongside fruits and vegetables is even more cost-effective than subsidizing fruits and vegetables alone. This broader approach prevents more cases of cardiovascular disease and diabetes, resulting in greater long-term healthcare savings and lower cost-per-QALY ratios.

The efficacy of the vegetable consumption app is moderated by baseline vegetable intake; users with higher baseline consumption benefit significantly more from the intervention.

If you already eat a decent amount of vegetables, a tracking app will likely boost your intake even more than if you eat few vegetables. The app's gamification resonates more with those who already value vegetables.