It's common wisdom: Exercise is the best medicine when it comes to maintaining a healthy body. But the recommended dosage of 30 minutes of exercise may to try and help prevent heart failure may not be enough.
Heart failure occurs when the heart is unable to supply an adequate amounts of blood to the body and is described by shortness of breath and reduced ability to exercise. This condition affects about 5.1 million people in the U.S. and is estimated to a total of $32 billion dollars per year for health care services, medications for treatment, and missed days of work, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In a recent study, Jarett Berry, assistant professor of medicine and clinical sciences at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, and colleagues analyzed responses from 12 large studies involving 370,460 men and women about their exercise habits. After 15 years, the group had experienced 20,203 heart failure occurrences and participants who were following the 30 minutes per day regimen specified by the American Heart Association (AHA), showed a slight decrease in heart failure (compared to those who did not exercise at all) but those who doubled and quadruple the amount of exercises had lowered their risk by 20 to 30 percent.
The findings reveled that higher levels of physical activity is connected to a lower risk of heart failure. Therefore, exercising more than what is recommended is not a waste of time, it s actually beneficial towards your health, at least if you have hypertension, diabetes or a history of heart failure.