Decreasing Heart Failure Risk with Just an Hour of Exercise

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Exercise is one of the things that Americans are lacking the most because we are simply don’t have “enough time” or we’re “too busy”.  But here’s a great reason why we should all be exercising at least an hour a day:

In a study that began in 1997, Swedish researchers analyzed 39,805 people who ranged from 20 to 90 years old. The cohorts were all healthy and did not have any heart failure issues. Over time, the researchers tracked the cohort’s fitness levels using questionnaires about their lifestyle, physical activity, smoking, alcohol habits, and medication usage.  At the end of the study they analyzed the results.

The researchers found that people in the study who were most active in their leisure time, who did more than an hour of moderate exercise or half an hour of vigorous exercise per day were 46% less likely to develop heart failure than those who did nothing.

The risk however was greater in males based on their BMI, waist-hip ratio, lower levels of education, and health history of heart attack, diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol, etc.  But even though the male population of the cohort had a higher risk, when they increase physical activity they evened out the odds.

This shows that by exercising one hour a day, every week, you can reduce the risk of heart failure by a significant amount, This also means that we can reduce the numbers of death from heart disease which is one of the top killers in the U.S.

Simply by getting up and doing something vigorous for 30 minutes, it will help vastly improve health and if you’re one of those people who are “too busy” to work out, make it shorter but intense.

To read the full article, please go to Women’s Health Mag

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