Individuals with high blood pressure, high cholesterol or diabetes receive huge health gains by increasing physical activity

A new study presented at the European Society of Cardiology revealed that increasing physical activity for individuals with high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes is associated with a reduced likelihood of cardiovascular events and death.

Previous research has always shown improvements and the idea of exercise and heart health is nothing new but the difference with this new study is that studies on a large scale as this one is, usually involve the general population. This study included 88,320 individuals from the LifeLines Cohort Study.

Participants were divided into 5 groups (according to baseline and 4 years) large reduction, moderate reduction, no change, moderate improvement and large improvement. The participants were followed for an average of 7 years after their first assessment or the occurrence of cardiovascular disease or death. A total of 18,502 individuals had high blood pressure, high cholesterol and/or diabetes at the start of the study. The average age of the 18,502 was 55 years old. After adjusting for age, sex, and baseline physical activity, the study found those with a moderate to large improvement in physical activity were around 30% less likely to develop cardiovascular disease or die compared to those who did not change their activity levels.