There is a growing interest in the role of timing of daily behaviors in improving health. However, little is known about the optimal timing of physical activity to maximize health benefits. We perform a cohort study of 92,139 UK Biobank participants with valid accelerometer data and all-cause and cause-specific mortality outcomes, comprising over 7 years of median follow-up (638,825 person-years). Moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity (MVPA) at any time of day is associated with lower risks for all-cause, cardiovascular disease, and cancer mortality. In addition, compared with morning group (>50% of daily MVPA during 05:00-11:00), midday-afternoon (11:00-17:00) and mixed MVPA timing groups, but not evening group (17:00-24:00), have lower risks of all-cause and cardiovascular disease mortality. These protective associations are more pronounced among the elderly, males, less physically active participants, or those with preexisting cardiovascular diseases. Here, we show that MVPA timing may have the potential to improve public health.

Aims: To investigate the joint association of accelerometer-measured physical activity (PA) and sleep duration with mortality risk. Methods and results: A 7-day accelerometer recording was performed on 92 221 participants (age 62.4 ± 7.8 years; 56.4% women) from the UK Biobank between February 2013 and December 2015. We divided sleep duration into three groups (short, normal, and long), total volume of PA into three levels according to tertiles (high, intermediate, low), and moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA) into two groups based on the World Health Organization guidelines. The mortality outcomes were prospectively collected through the death registry. Over a median follow-up of 7.0 years, 3080 adults died, of which 1074 died from cardiovascular disease (CVD) and 1871 from cancer. The associations of PA and sleep duration with mortality risk were all in a curvilinear dose–response pattern (Pnonlinearity <0.001). PA and sleep duration had additive and multiplicative interactions on mortality risk (Pinteraction <0.05). Compared with the participants with guideline-recommended MVPA and normal sleep duration, those without recommended MVPA but having short or long sleep duration were at a higher risk for all-cause mortality [short sleep: hazard ratio (HR) = 1.88; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.61–2.20; long sleep: HR = 1.69; 95% CI, 1.49–1.90]. A higher volume of PA or recommended MVPA attenuated the detrimental effects of short or long sleep duration on all-cause and CVD mortality risks. Conclusion: MVPA meeting recommendations or a higher volume of PA at any intensity potentially diminished the adverse effects on all-cause and cause-specific mortality associated with short and long sleep duration.

This updated meta-analysis was performed to clarify the relationship between phytoestrogens and prostate cancer risk. Twenty one case–control and two cohort studies were finally selected for this meta-analysis, totaling 11,346 cases and 140,177 controls. Analytical results showed that daidzein (OR = 0.85; 95% CI: 0.75–0.96), genistein (OR = 0.87; 95% CI: 0.78–0.98), and glycitein (OR = 0.89; 95% CI: 0.81–0.98) were associated with a reduction of prostate cancer risk, but total isoflavones (OR = 0.93; 95% CI: 0.84–1.04), equol (OR = 0.86; 95% CI: 0.66–1.14), total lignans (OROgna.05; 95% CI: 0.54–2.04), secoisolariciresinol (OR = 1.02; 95% CI: 0.83–1.24), matairesinol (OR = 0.91; 95% CI: 0.75–1.11), enterolactone (OR = 0.94; 95% CI: 0.73–1.20), and coumestrol (OR = 0.89; 95% CI: 0.76–1.06) were not. Sensitivity and publication bias analyses demonstrated that the pooled estimates were stable and reliable. The results support the notion that some phytoestrogens may have a role in decreasing the risk of prostate cancer. Additional large and well-designed cohort studies are needed to confirm these relationships.