Background: Diabetes and physical inactivity are prevalent worldwide. Risk of diabetes is known to be related with insufficient physical activity (PA), but associations with the respective dimensions of PA is unclear. Objective: To describe the patterns of physical activity among Chinese middle- and older-aged individuals and figure out their associations with diabetes risk in different dimensions. Methods: Extracting self-reported data from China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS, 2015), this study included 6196 participants. Multivariate logistic regression was conducted to determine the association between diabetes risk and PA dimensions such as intensity, frequency, duration, and volume. Results: Concerning frequency, lower diabetes risk was associated with performing vigorous PA at any frequency overall. For duration, smaller odds of diabetes were observed in performing vigorous PA 2–4 h/day (OR 0.46, 95%CI 0.30 to 0.71), moderate PA ≥4 h/day (OR 0.59, 95%CI 0.42 to 0.82) and light PA ≥4 h/day (OR 0.59, 95%CI 0.41 to 0.85) overall. For volume, lower diabetes risk was associated with performing moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA) ≥2250 METs/week (OR 0.58, 95%CI 0.42 to 0.81) in middle-aged group (45–64 years), whereas no significant associations between MVPA and diabetes risk were found in older aged group (≥65 years). Conclusions: Our results revealed that physical inactivity is prevalent in China, with a greater proportion in the diabetes group. Lower risk of diabetes was associated with higher frequency, longer duration and longer volume of PA at higher intensity in middle-aged respondents and similar associations at lower intensity for the older adults. Additionally, further well-designed prospective studies are needed to confirm our findings.

Context: Persuasive evidence has shown the inverse associations between physical activity (PA) and the risk of stroke. However, few studies have investigated the associations between different dimensions (intensity, frequency, duration, volume) of PA and the risk of stroke. Objective: To investigate the associations between different dimensions of PA and the risk of stroke in total participants and subgroups. Method: This study included 6250 individuals aged 45 years old and above from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS). PA was divided into vigorous PA (VPA), moderate PA (MPA), and light PA (LPA), and described in different dimensions (intensity, frequency, duration, volume). Stroke was defined on the basis of self-reported diagnosis and related treatments. Binary logistic regression models were established to assess the associations between different dimensions of PA and the risk of stroke in total participants and subgroups stratified by sex. Results: Individuals taking VPA with a frequency of 3–5 d/w, duration of ≥240 min/d, volume of ≥300 min/w had lower risks of strokes in total participants (Odds ratio (OR) = 0.32, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.13, 0.75; OR = 0.60, 95% CI: 0.38, 0.94; OR = 0.68, 95% CI: 0.46, 0.99, respectively). However, significant associations of VPA with the risk of stroke in men were only observed in the duration of ≥240 min/d and volume of ≥300 min/w (OR = 0.53, 95% CI: 0.30, 0.93; OR = 0.61, 95% CI: 0.38, 0.99, respectively) whereas no significance in women. Compared with individuals taking no MPA, inverse significant associations between the risk of stroke and any level of frequency, duration and volume in MPA were observed in total sample (OR ranging from 0.16–0.40, all p < 0.05), whereas significant associations between the risk of stroke and MPA were found in men except the duration of 10–29 min/d and volume of 150–299 min/w (OR ranging from 0.26–0.35, all p < 0.05), and in women except the frequency of 1–2 d/w and duration of ≥240 min/d (OR ranging from 0.14–0.49, all p < 0.05). No significant associations could be observed in total participants and subgroups between LPA and the risk of stroke. Conclusion: This study revealed some significant associations between different dimensions of PA, especially MPA, and the risk of stroke. Furthermore, the difference of association was observed in the groups with different sex. Further prospective study is needed to determine deeper associations between PA and the risk of stroke.