Minutes Day Walk Is Really Enough?

That 30 minutes of moderate workout may not be enough to strengthen your heart.

In the investigation, the researchers reviewed 12 previous studies that contain data about 370,460 men and women with different levels of exercise. The percentage of people that suffer from heart failure could increase by 25 percent until 2030, experts have estimated. Each of the participants self-reported their daily activities which allowed the team to estimate the amount of exercise they were doing.

Compared with participants reporting no leisure time physical activity, those who engaged in guideline recommended minimum levels of physical activity (500 MET-min/week, 2008 U.S. Federal Guidelines) had modest reductions in heart failure risk [relative risk 0.90, 95% CI 0.87-0.92). At the end of the study, scientists noticed that the 30-minute session of physical activity recommended by the American Heart Association triggers only mild physical reactions in participants’ bodies.

Further, Sattelmair and colleagues observed a plateau in the risk reduction for coronary artery disease (CAD) at doses higher than 1,000 MET-min/week, whereas the current study found a 35% risk reduction for heart failure at high physical activity levels as high as 2,000 MET-min/week.

The results of the research were consistent across all ages, sexes, races and countries in the study.

“Walking 30 minutes a day as recommended in the USA physical activity guidelines may not be good enough”, said Dr. Jarett Berry, a senior author of the study and an associate professor of internal medicine and clinical sciences at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School. If you look at the general population, we’ve had tremendous success in reducing coronary heart disease over the last 30 years.

“This is an important finding, but more work is needed to inform existing physical activity guidelines for health”, explains study lead author Bert Bond, with the University of Exeter. “That counts as occupational”. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that one minute of vigorous activity is about the same as two minutes of moderate activity, so you can do a mix of the two each week. The heart is a muscle, it has concluded, and the more it is exercised, the better it keeps.

If you can’t add any more exercise time into your already packed schedule, researchers said microbursts of intense activity can be helpful.