Stressful life events and habitual physical activity in older adults: 1-year accelerometer data from the Nakanojo Study

Abstract Objectives Stressful life events may have an indirect effect on health by reducing a person's habitual physical activity. The literature supports a negative association between stressful life events and the self-reported physical activity of younger adults, but further evidence is needed for older individuals, using objective measurements of physical activity. We have therefore investigated this issue in a healthy sample of seniors. Methods The subjects were 83 men and 101 women, aged 65–85 years. An accelerometer measured their step counts and the intensity of physical activity in metabolic equivalents (METs) on a 24-h basis for an entire year. At the year's end, subjects reported stressful life events that had occurred during the year. Pearson's partial correlation coefficients between these events and physical activity were calculated after controlling for inter-individual differences in age. Results The age-adjusted number of events was negatively correlated with both average daily step count and average daily duration of activity > 3 METs in males ( r  = −0.27, p  = 0.02; r  = −0.37, p  = 0.001, respectively). The self-reported age-adjusted total severity of events showed significant negative correlations with both step count and duration of activity > 3 METs, both in males ( r  = −0.29, p  = 0.01; r  = −0.37, p  = 0.001, respectively) and in females ( r  = −0.21, p  = 0.03; r  = −0.25, p  = 0.01, respectively). Conclusion Stressful life events in the elderly are associated with a low level of habitual physical activity (particularly in men who take little exercise of moderate intensity).