Accelerometer-Derived Total Activity and Cardiometabolic Health Factors among US Adults, NHANES 2011-2014

We described how Monitor Independent Movement Summary (MIMS) units, a novel measure of accelerometer-derived total physical activity, relate to body mass index, glycated hemoglobin, non-high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, systolic blood pressure, and diastolic blood pressure in a nationally representative sample of US adults.

We used 2011-2014 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data to examine 6638 adults aged ≥20 yr who did not report a current pregnancy and had nonmissing data for all modeled variables and valid accelerometer data. For each cardiometabolic health factor, we created two generalized linear models adjusting for 1) age only and 2) covariates (sociodemographic characteristics, health behaviors, history of cardiovascular disease), to identify associations with standardized increments of MIMS units.

When adjusting for age only, 1000 higher average daily MIMS units was associated with 0.91% (95% confidence interval, 0.72%-1.10%) lower body mass index, 0.26% (0.13%-0.38%) lower glycated hemoglobin, and 0.27% (0.03%-0.52%) lower non-high-density lipoprotein cholesterol and was nonsignificantly associated with systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure; additional adjusting for covariates had little influence.

Results confirmed that associations between MIMS units and cardiometabolic health factors are similar to patterns observed between traditional accelerometer-derived measures and cardiometabolic health factors, which could support the use of MIMS units as an indicator of health-related movement, further increasing their usefulness in public health surveillance and research. Using MIMS units in cardiovascular health research could deepen understanding of the broad benefits of physical activity on cardiovascular health through device-based measurement of total activity.