Moderate exercise helps improve cholesterol

Moderate forms of exercise like brisk walking could be enough to improve cholesterol levels in women. Researchers from the Institut Municipal d'Investigació Mèdica in Barcelona, Spain found that young and middle-aged women who favoured moderate-intensity exercise, such as walking, had lower levels of bad (LDL) cholesterol and higher levels of heart-healthy (HDL) cholesterol as compared to their sedentary peers. The researchers assessed exercise habits, cholesterol levels and fitness levels among 403 pre menopausal women. They found that the more calories a woman burned through moderate exercise, the lower her LDL (bad) cholesterol and the higher her HDL (good) levels. However, regular vigorous exercise appeared to improve women's fitness levels, as measured by a treadmill test. Women, who worked out more vigorously, through activities like jogging, tended to have the greatest cardiovascular endurance of all study participants. However, they did not show the cholesterol benefit that moderate exercisers did. It's not clear why this was the case. But what the findings suggest is that women need not work out too hard to win some health benefits. It's not necessary to practice high-intensity physical activity to improve the lipid (cholesterol) profile. Moderate-intensity workouts are is enough to obtain these benefits. As for why these women didn't show better cholesterol levels than their sedentary peers, it might be a matter of numbers. That is, few women in the study actually worked out at a high intensity, and the small number may have made it hard, in statistical analysis, to detect an effect on cholesterol.