# UK Biobank cohort: weekend-only exercise linked to lower cataract and AMD risk in 86,271 adults

- Published: 2026-11-13 19:04 UTC
- Section: Life & Health › Sport & health
- Tags: weekend warrior physical activity, age-related eye diseases, cataract risk, age-related macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma, UK Biobank cohort, accelerometer study, moderate-to-vigorous activity
- URL: https://realtech.media/news/rt-32df7160cf135842e931b712_uk_biobank_cohort/

**In a UK Biobank cohort, people who fit 150+ minutes of moderate-to-vigorous activity into one or two days had lower risk of several age-related eye diseases than inactive peers.**

A prospective cohort study published in Eye and Vision examined whether concentrating physical activity into one or two days a week is associated with age-related eye diseases. The analysis included 86,271 UK Biobank participants who had no cataract, glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy or age-related macular degeneration (AMD) at baseline. The median follow-up was 7.9 years [1].

International guidelines recommend at least 150 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) per week. It has remained unclear whether concentrated and evenly distributed activity differ in their associations with eye disease, according to the authors [1].

## Design and activity measurement

UK Biobank enrolled 502,629 people aged 40 to 69 between 2006 and 2010. From February 2013 to December 2015, 103,662 of them wore a wrist triaxial accelerometer, the Axivity AX3, for seven consecutive days. After technical and covariate exclusions, 91,948 remained, and removing 5,677 people with prevalent eye disease left 86,271.

MVPA was identified with a Random Forest classifier trained on wearable-camera annotations, which showed 88% accuracy and a Cohen kappa of 0.80. Participants were classed as inactive (below the threshold), weekend warriors (meeting the threshold with at least 50% of MVPA within one or two days) or regularly active (meeting it without that concentration). At 150 min/week there were 37,486 weekend warriors (43.5%), 20,022 regularly active (23.2%) and 28,763 inactive (33.3%) [1].

## Associations with eye diseases

At the 150 min/week threshold, both patterns were associated with lower cataract risk compared with inactivity: hazard ratio (HR) 0.89 (95% CI 0.84–0.94) for weekend warriors and 0.93 (0.87–0.99) for regularly active participants. The weekend warrior pattern was also associated with lower risk of diabetic retinopathy (HR 0.74, 0.55–0.99) and AMD (HR 0.85, 0.75–0.97) [1].

Direct comparisons between the two active patterns showed no significant differences for these conditions (all P > 0.05). The exception was a nominal difference in glaucoma (P = 0.036) [1].

At the 300 min/week threshold, only the weekend warrior pattern stayed significantly associated with lower risk of cataract (HR 0.91, 0.86–0.97) and glaucoma (HR 0.86, 0.75–0.97). The authors conclude that both patterns show protective associations compared with inactivity, with no statistically significant differences between them for most outcomes. This is an observational design, so the results describe associations [1].

## Sources

1. [Eye and Vision](https://doi.org/10.1186/s40662-026-00480-6)
2. [bioengineer.org](https://bioengineer.org/weekend-warrior-physical-activity-pattern-linked-to-reduced-risk-of-eye-diseases)

---

Source: RealTech, realtech.media — https://realtech.media/news/rt-32df7160cf135842e931b712_uk_biobank_cohort/