Study pinpoints heart benefits of exercise

A MASSIVE review of 160 clinical trials sheds new light on how – exactly – exercise benefits heart and respiratory health.
Our understanding of exercise has come under fire, as studies emerge revealing that it has less to do with weight loss than we may have thought.
As for cardiovascular health, much remains unknown as to how the benefits come into play and why the effects vary from person to person.
"Because the exact mechanisms linking exercise to intermediate health outcomes are not clear, we also wanted to examine the effects of exercise ... " says lead author Xiaochen Lin, a doctoral candidate at the Brown University School of Public Health.
Working with data on nearly 7,500 participants the research team set out to evaluate how exercise interventions affect health – and whether or not they are always the right choice for the individual.
"Based on our findings, exercise interventions are not universally effective across different intermediate outcomes and subgroups of participants," says corresponding author Dr. Simin Liu, a professor of epidemiology and of medicine at Brown.
They examined cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) based on the heart and lungs' ability to efficiently deliver oxygen to the muscles during a workout.
Maintaining good CRF could ward off cardiovascular disease, says Liu, because exercise lowers "bad" LDL cholesterol and ups "good" HDL cholesterol.
While this holds true, the risk reduction is much lower than previously thought, according to Liu.
Greater benefits of exercise include increased insulin sensitivity and a reduction in inflammation, the study concludes.
Men often reap more benefits than women, as do individuals under the age of 50 versus the elder set, according to the study, published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
Those with health problems such as type 2 diabetes, hypertension or hyperlipidemia reaped more benefits from exercise than the healthy.
While the benefits of exercise are plentiful, Liu points out that there are other modifiable lifestyle factors that could be even more important for cardiometabolic health, depending on the individual.
"Based on our findings, exercise interventions are not universally effective across different intermediate outcomes and subgroups of participants," says Liu. – AFP Relaxnews