An hour of moderate exercise or an intense daily workout of half hour cuts down the risk of heart attack by 46 percent, a new research shows.
Swedish researchers examined 39,805 people aged between 20 and 90. The participants did not have any heart ailment when the study began in 1997. At the start of the study the leisure and activity time of the subjects was measured and they were subsequently tracked to see if they developed any risk of heart failure.
The study findings revealed that more physical activity led to lesser heart failure risk. Researchers also found that people who were involved in more than one hour of moderate or half an hour of vigorous physical activity a day had a 46 percent reduced risk of developing heart failure. Both men and women benefitted equally from the exercise.
The research also stated that older people, men, participants with low education, a higher body mass index and waist-hip ratio, and a history of heart attack, diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol, were at the risk of heart failure.
"You do not need to run a marathon to gain the benefits of physical activity - even quite low levels of activity can give you positive effects," Kasper Andersen, M.D., Ph.D., study co-author and researcher at the Uppsala University in Uppsala, Sweden, said in a press release. "Physical activity lowers many heart disease risk factors, which in turn lowers the risk of developing heart failure as well as other heart diseases."
He also said that walking, bicycling or taking the stairs might significantly help people who lead a sedentary lifestyle.
The study is published in the American Heart Association journal Circulation: Heart Failure.
