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HowToPreventHeartDisease.com |
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Lose Weight By Diet Or Exercise Could Make Your Heart Young! Excess weight, especially obesity, has been shown to affect the heart's elasticity. Besides being a risk factor for heart disease, overweight can also lead to diabetes, high blood pressure (hypertension), and even cancer. In order to cut down the excess kilos in one’s body, one can eat less, exercise more, take slimming pills, or even go for operation. While studies have suggested that weight loss achieved by diet and exercise improves cardiac function, there is no previous research that showed that weight loss can be accomplished by either eating less or exercising. A group of researchers from Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, Missouri published their findings during January 2008 in the American Journal of Physiology that some of the heart’s youth might be restored by cutting down the extra weight in the body, either by eating less or exercising. In the study, weight loss and heart function in 25 men and women who were overweight (but not obese) were monitored for one year. These participants were divided into 2 groups: half of them cut their daily calories by about 12 percent, and the other half took up an exercise program in which they did activities like walking, running or cycling 6 days per week.
The exercisers did not make diet changes, but burned roughly the same percentage of calories as the diet group cut from their food intake. At the end of the study, both groups lost similar amount of weight (about 12 percent of their original weight). Furthermore, the ultrasound imaging showed that both the dieters and exercisers had similar improvements in the heart's ability to relax between contractions. In fact, ageing will make the body tissue in our body accumulates collagen fibers, which causes tissue, including heart muscle and arteries, to become stiffer. As such the heart starts to take a bit longer to relax between contractions and fill back up with blood. No Doubt people are aware that overweight is bad for their body, but it is not easy to convince them to lose weight. This is because the potential consequences of being fat, including diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, are often far off in the future. People could not visualize these harmful consequences right now, especially when they are still in good health. With the new findings in hand, perhaps doctors are in a better position to convince them to lose weight and they can have better cardiovascular health right away. A message from the researchers: if people want to do something good for their heart, it is advisable to lose weight by the method they find most tolerable. They are virtually guaranteed that it will have a beneficial effect on their cardiovascular system.
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