Physical Activity or Cardiorespiratory Fitness

We evaluated the association of cardiorespiratory fitness and physical activity to mortality in 7,855 women and 25,218 men examined during 1970–1994. All participants were apparently healthy and completed a maximal exercise test on a treadmill. Participants were followed to date of death or to 12/31/94 for survivors. There were 102 deaths in women and 743 deaths in men. We assigned participants to 3 categories of activity (Sedentary, Active = up to 19.9 MET hours/week, and Highly active = ≥ 20 MET hours/week), and fitness (Low = least fit 20%, Moderate = next 40%, and High = most fit 40%). There was a significant inverse trend for mortality across both activity and fitness categories, which remained after adjustment for BMI, smoking habit, alcohol intake, hypertension, and parental history of early death. When both activity and fitness were entered into the same model, the inverse trend across activity categories disappeared. The inverse trend remained across fitness categories (RR (95% confidence interval))-Women (Low = 1.0, Moderate = 0.44 (0.28–0.71), and High = 0.33 (0.17–0.65)) and Men (Low = 1.0, Moderate = 0.53 (0.44–0.64), and High = 0.42 (0.32–0.56). We conclude that cardiorespiratory fitness is stronger than physical activity as a predictor of mortality in women and men. Supported by NIA 06945