Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death globally, claiming around 17.9 million lives each year. This has made it difficult to assess whether increasing physical activity always gives an additional benefit in reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease, or if there is an upper limit on improvements to cardiovascular health from exercise. It shows that physical activity is probably even more important for the prevention of cardiovascular disease than we previously thought. These results demonstrate, therefore, that exercise alone has a significant effect on cardiovascular disease risk. The researchers recorded the number of first hospital admissions or death caused by cardiovascular disease.
