Just by walking 2000 additional steps a day, glucose-intolerant individuals can cut their risk of heart attack and stroke, a new study suggests.
The experiment gathered more than 9,300 adults in 40 countries with so-called impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) who had also been diagnosed with cardiovascular disease or were considered at risk from it.
Stress Reaction Gene may Increase Heart Attack Risk
Stress reaction gene may be responsible for a 38 percent increased risk of heart attack or death in patients with heart disease, say scientists.
Advertisement
They all received a "lifestyle modification programme," advising them of the benefits of reducing body weight and dietary fat and doing regular exercise.
They were also issued with pedometers, which clocked up how many paces they walked each week, both at the start of the experiment and 12 months later.
Volunteers who added 2,000 steps -- around 20 minutes of moderate walking -- to their existing daily schedule reduced the cardiovascular risk by eight percent by the time of the study ended, six years later.
The study, published in The Lancet, said IGT affects about 344 million people, or 7.9 percent of the world's adult population -- a tally expected to rise to 472 million (8.4 percent) by 2030.
"People with IGT have a greatly increased risk of cardiovascular disease", study leader Thomas Yates from the University of Leicester, central England, said in a press release.
"While several studies have suggested that physical activity is beneficially linked to health in those with IGT, this is the first study to specifically quantify the extent to which change in walking behaviour can modify the risk."
Source: AFP
Advertisement
Volunteers who added 2,000 steps -- around 20 minutes of moderate walking -- to their existing daily schedule reduced the cardiovascular risk by eight percent by the time of the study ended, six years later.
The study, published in The Lancet, said IGT affects about 344 million people, or 7.9 percent of the world's adult population -- a tally expected to rise to 472 million (8.4 percent) by 2030.
"People with IGT have a greatly increased risk of cardiovascular disease", study leader Thomas Yates from the University of Leicester, central England, said in a press release.
"While several studies have suggested that physical activity is beneficially linked to health in those with IGT, this is the first study to specifically quantify the extent to which change in walking behaviour can modify the risk."
Source: AFP
Advertisement
Advertisement
Recommended Reading
Latest Heart Disease News
Researchers uncovered an association between heart disease and chronic kidney disease.
How to predict heart disease risk? Machine learning algorithms using indicators of oral infections may accurately predict the possibility of heart disease.
A higher risk for earlier first birth is limited by acting on traditional heart disease risk factors, such as BMI, high cholesterol and high blood pressure.
A new study strengthens evidence linking low dose radiation to risk of heart diseases.
People with an irregular heart rhythm (atrial fibrillation or AFib) are at a higher risk of developing dementia.
