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This article originally appeared on Time.com.?
Exercise is one of the most powerful steps you can take to protect your heart, based on new information published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology.
Researchers within the Netherlands gathered data from 5,344 middle-aged and seniors residing in Rotterdam who reported their exercise habits, in addition to their height and weight measurements to determine themselves mass index. The scientists also collected info on the group’s rates of heart disease and stroke over Fifteen years.
The data confirmed what doctors have long known: that overweight and obesity are linked to high risk of heart problems. People who were heavier had the highest rates of cardiovascular disease during the study. But when they checked out overweight and obese people who also exercised regularly, they found that their heart disease rates were similar to the ones from normal weight people who also exercised.
Exercise, in other words, appeared to counterbalance the unwanted effects of weight with regards to cardiovascular disease. “We discovered that inactivity and obesity have a similar risk or similar risk of developing cardiovascular disease,” says Klodian Dhana, a postdoctoral researcher in epidemiology at Erasmus Medical Center, who’s now in in the department of nutrition at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health.
How generalizable the findings are to other populations outside of the Netherlands isn’t clear yet, since even low-level exercisers in Rotterdam reported bothering least two hours of moderate exercise a day-a significant amount, for most people. The ultra-exercisers in Rotterdam were getting about four hours daily. That’s because most of the people reported biking to work in order to do errands, and the researchers included all types of activity within their analysis.
Still, the fact that the research found this effect should send a strong message that being active is one of the best ways to reduce the risk of heart disease. Overweight and obesity continue to be major risk factors for heart disease, but the results suggest that a minimum of some of the harmful effects of excess fat can be offset by exercise.
Because the study involved older people, it also implies that it’s rarely past too far to profit from exercise. “They should believe that by doing exercise in older age, they are able to still benefit from decreasing their risk of cardiovascular disease,” says Dhana.
