Walking -- effective dose

BEIJING, Dec. 18 (Xinhuanet) -- Walking briskly for 30 minutes a day, six days a week is enough to reduce blood pressure, trime waistlines and cut the risk of metabolic syndrome, according to a study in the American Journal of Cardiology quoted by media reports Tuesday.
"Our study shows that you'll benefit even if you don't make any dietary changes," study leader Johanna L. Johnson, a clinical researcher at Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina, said in a statement.
Senior investigator William Kraus from Duke University Medical Center said the purpose of the study was to identify the effects of different exercise programs on the metabolic syndrome.
Compared with sedentary adults, those with moderate intensity exercise -- walking 10 to 11 miles (about 16 to 18 km) over an average 170 minutes a week -- resulted in a significant improvement in metabolic syndrome. Moreover, the benefit was achieved without dietary changes.
In this study, the investigators analyzed data from 171 men and women with complete pre- and post-training data for all five metabolic syndrome criteria.
Before exercising regularly, 41 percent of the study subjects met the criteria for metabolic syndrome. At the end of the 8-month exercise program, only 27 percent did.
Investigators also found that the low-amount/moderate-intensity exercise program reduced the prevalence of the metabolic syndrome relative to inactive controls, but this same amount of exercise at vigorous intensity was not significantly better than the inactive control group.
Those who participated in high-amount/vigorous-intensity exercise improved the metabolic syndrome relative to controls as well as to the low-amount participants, all suggesting an exercise dose effect, said the investigators.
(Agencies)
Editor: Feng Tao