A new study has found that exercise is equally as important for keeping your heart healthy as eating a healthy diet or lowering your cholesterol. The researchers found that after a single session of endurance training, there was greater expression of genes that repair DNA damage.
The findings are important to better understand how exercise offers protective effects to the heart. The researchers are hopeful that greater understanding of the processes that exercise affects in the heart can lead to greater drug-free treatments for chronic heart problems.
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The researchers studied mice who ran on a treadmill for 30 minutes. They then looked at gene expression of the mice and compared the results with hearts of mice who did not exercise. The researchers suggest that their findings could translate to humans because these mechanisms work similar among mice and humans.
Co-author Professor Stephen Roth explained, “The genes that are important for genome stability are upregulated in the heart tissue after a single bout of endurance exercise. This may contribute to the protective effects of exercise on cardiovascular health.”
The study furthers the notion that exercise is an integral part of heart health.
Related: Yoga for heart health: Yoga poses to reduce the risk of heart disease
Mohan Garikiparithi got his degree in medicine from Osmania University (University of Health Sciences). He practiced clinical medicine for over a decade before he shifted his focus to the field of health communications. During his active practice he served as the head of the Dept. of Microbiology in a diagnostic centre in India. On a three-year communications program in Germany, Mohan developed a keen interest in German Medicine (Homoeopathy), and other alternative systems of medicine. He now advocates treating different medical conditions without the use of traditional drugs. An ardent squash player, Mohan believes in the importance of fitness and wellness.
