Can Micro-doses of Physical Activity Offset the Negative Cardiovascular Consequences of Being Sedentary in Patients With COPD?
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a disease of the lungs that makes it hard for people to breath. Those with COPD spend considerably more time sitting and lying and less time performing physical activity than healthy individuals. Those who are the most sedentary have a greater risk of heart and blood vessel disease, which may lead to an early death. This project will investigate the effect of sitting still for 3 hours on blood vessel health in individuals with COPD. It will also investigate whether breaking up the amount of time patients sit with regular short bouts of walking (5 minutes each hour) at a comfortable pace chosen by the patient can have a positive effect on maintaining the health of their blood vessels. It is hypothesized that blood vessel health will be worse after 3 hours of sitting compared to when the sitting is broken up by short bouts of walking.
• Non-smoking (\>6 months) patients with stable moderate-to-severe COPD (post bronchodilator forced expired volume in 1 sec/forced vital capacity\<0.7 and \<lower limit of normal, 30%\<Forced Expired Volume in 1 sec\<80% predicted and exacerbation free for \>6 weeks) will be recruited for the study.