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Long, slow walks may be more effective exercise for the heart

Category: General Health

Researchers have found that an exercise plan that burns more calories over less-intense periods of exercise might do a better job helping people lose weight and reduce cardiovascular risk than standard cardiac rehabilitation programs.

According to a study appearing in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, overweight patients who exercised more but with less intensity lost twice as much weight as those on typical cardiac rehab regimens that had been developed in the 1970s. They also saw greater reductions in the markers of metabolic syndrome.

"It's a different time in terms of what we need to do in cardiac rehab," according to Dr Philip A. Ades, of the University of Vermont, a lead author on the study. "Eighty percent of our rehabilitation patients are now overweight and many of them are becoming diabetic."

The motto for the new exercise regime was "walk often, walk far" according to an article in Medpage Today. This translated as exercising more often for a longer period of time but at lower intensity.

Besides the greater weight loss, the patients on the walking regime had lower results on insulin resistance tests and cholesterol tests.