Exercise really is good for you

S Goya Wannamethee ^1*

¹ Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, United Kingdom

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: goya{at}pcps.ucl.ac.uk.

Accepted 31 May 2006

Abstract

Over the last 50 years since the pioneering work of Professor Jerry Morris in the UK 1, numerous prospective epidemiological studies have consistently shown an inverse association between physical activity and coronary heart disease (CHD) 2. The evidence for the role of physical activity in preventing CHD is compelling 2. Leisure time physical activity is associated with a 30-50% reduction in risk of CHD and a pooled analysis of 16 cohorts indicates a dose response relationship between physical activity and risk of coronary heart disease 2,3. Randomised trials have shown physical activity to reduce atherosclerotic risk factors including obesity, insulin resistance, blood pressure and blood lipids 4. A sedentary lifestyle is now considered to be one of the major risk factors for coronary heart disease. With increasing obesity and sedentary lifestyle in both western and developing countries5,6 the importance of promoting physical activity has been on the agenda in most government health initiatives. The question of whether it is ever too late to start and how much exercise needs to be undertaken has been a key topic of research and discussion in recent years.

Keywords: coronary heart disease, lifetime pattern, physical activity

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