Exercise and Your Heart: A Little Bit'll Do It

It doesn't take much exercise to help reduce your risk of heart disease. A new review of 33 earlier studies on the benefits of exercise found that people who get 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week reduce their risk of heart disease by 14 percent compared to inactive people (150 minutes comes out to 30 minutes a day, five days a week). Of course, more is better, and with additional physical activity (five hours of exercise per week) you can lower your risk by as much 20 percent (again, compared to inactive folks). The review found that women benefit more from exercise than men, but the researchers aren't sure why and have suggested that the difference may be due to a statistical quirk. You might also achieve an additional risk reduction of five percent if you're up for exercising 12.5 hours per week, but the researchers conceded that the extra five percent may not be worth all that added effort. The study was published online August 1 in Circulation.

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Posted in: Conditions and Diseases,Health,Heart disease,Physical exercise