Until now, we were happy with the knowledge that 30 minutes of exercise a day would give us a healthy heart. But now, scientists have come to the conclusion that 150 minutes of exercise a week is not enough to keep the heart in prime condition.
During the study, data from 370,000 people who had been tracked as part of 12 different studies were analyzed by scientists at the University of Texas. The results have been published in the journal Circulation.
The results show that exercising 30 minutes a day helps against developing heart disease, but only by 10 percent. Increasing the duration of exercise to an hour a day decreases the chances of heart problems by 19 percent, but to achieve a 35 percent reduction in the risk of heart failure, one would need two hours of exercise every day, reports the Apex Tribune.
"Walking 30 minutes a day as recommended in the physical activity guidelines, may not be good enough - significantly more physical activity may be necessary to reduce the risk of heart failure,' said Jarett Berry, author of the research paper, according to the Daily Mail.
"Future physical activity guidelines should take these findings into consideration, and potentially provide stronger recommendations regarding the value of higher amounts of physical activity for the prevention of heart failure. If you look at the general population, we've had tremendous success in reducing coronary heart disease over the last 30 years. But heart failure rates have not declined enough. The findings from the present study suggest that higher levels of physical activity may help combat this growing burden of heart failure," said fellow researcher Ambarish Pandey.
The research has found a strong correlation between the amount of physical activity undertaken and risk of heart failure. The heart is a muscle, it has concluded, and the more it is exercised, the better it keeps.
