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Exercise is one of the best things you can do to increase your chances of living a long, healthy life. But the findings released this week may set the bar a little too high, at least for the average weekend warrior.<\/p>\n
Scientists from China’s Macau University of Technology and elsewhere examined data from a study of middle-aged people living in the UK. They found evidence that a significant amount of moderate to vigorous physical activity (about 10 hours per week) is needed to significantly reduce people’s risk of heart attack and other cardiovascular diseases. Although light exercise may still promote heart health, researchers argue that experts should be honest with people about these potentially high benchmarks.<\/p>\n
“the current [exercise] “Although the guidelines provide a universal but reasonable safety margin, significantly higher exercise levels may be required to provide optimal cardiovascular protection,” the authors write in a paper published this week in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.<\/p>\n
Research shows that any amount of exercise is better than no exercise at all. That said, health organizations generally recommend at least 150 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per week, and this amount is consistently associated with a variety of health improvements.<\/p>\n
While this recommendation sets a good baseline, study authors say there hasn’t been enough research looking at how people can personally respond to exercise. In other words, the same “dose” of exercise per week may not give two different people the same level of protection against cardiovascular disease.<\/p>\n
To better understand the cardiovascular benefits of exercise, researchers took a closer look at the UK Biobank, a long-term project tracking the health of middle-aged people in the country. They focused on a subset of about 17,000 volunteers who wore accelerometers on their wrists for one week that provided objective measurements of physical activity.<\/p>\n