JUST HOW much exercise is enough to crunch up optimal cardiovascular benefit? Not many studies on exercising and healthy can answer this question but it's a question which researchers at Duke University Medical Centre, tried to answer. They found that the amount of physical activity matters more than the intensity, when it comes to heart-healthy exercising.
The researchers assigned 111 sedentary, overweight volunteers, with mild to moderate cholesterol profiles, to control and exercise groups for a period of six to eight months. The exercise groups ranged from very high to low intensity as well as from high to low amounts of exercising.
The researchers concluded that improvements to cholesterol
profiles were related to the amount of physical activity and not to the intensity. Those persons who saw the greatest benefit on their cholesterol profiles were those who performed the highest amount of exercise with minimum weight change.
However, even those who were in the lower-amount
exercise groups saw better
heart-healthy responses than
the control group.
