Half an hour of exercise a day may NOT be enough to keep you healthy

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Doing the recommended 2.5 hours of exercise a week lowers risk by 10%
This 'isn't good enough' and doubling it to 5 hours reduces the risk by 19%
Those who do 10 hours a week had a 35% lower chance of heart failure
Experts: The heart is a muscle and works more efficiently when exercised

By Ben Spencer, Medical Correspondent For The Daily Mail

Published: 15:00 EST, 5 October 2015 | Updated: 20:17 EST, 5 October 2015

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Official advice on the minimum exercise people should do may not be enough to substantially lower the risk of heart failure, experts have warned.

The Government advises that adults undertake 150 minutes of moderate exercise a week.

Just half an hour of brisk walking, cycling or gardening, five days a week, will keep you healthy, officials say.

But new research suggests people may need to do twice or even four times that amount of activity to see a significant effect on their heart.

People may need to do twice or even four times the recommended 150 minutes of exercise a week to see a significant effect on their heart, research suggests (file photo)

Heart failure occurs when the heart is not able to supply adequate amounts of blood to the rest of the body and is characterized by shortness of breath and a reduced ability to exercise.

Scientists from the University of Texas analysed data from 370,000 people who had been tracked as party of 12 different studies.

The participants’ exercise levels were recorded and their health monitored over an average of 15 years.

Those who carried out two and a half hours of moderate exercise a week – as recommended in the UK and US – had a 10 per cent lower risk of heart failure than those who did no physical activity at all.

But the researchers said this result was ‘not good enough’.

They found that people who did double the recommended exercise had a 19 per cent reduced risk of heart failure.

And those who did four times as much – ten hours a week – had a 35 per cent lower chance of heart failure.

Heart failure occurs when the heart is not able to supply adequate amounts of blood to the rest of the body and is characterized by shortness of breath and a reduced ability to exercise (file photo)

Professor Jarett Berry, whose research is published in the journal Circulation, said: ‘Walking 30 minutes a day as recommended in the physical activity guidelines, may not be good enough - significantly more physical activity may be necessary to reduce the risk of heart failure.’

His team found a strong correlation between physical activity and reduced heart failure – the more exercise you do, the better.

This relationship was consistent across all age, sex, race, and countries studied.

Heart failure rates have not declined enough over the last 30 years. Higher levels of physical activity may help combat this growing burden of heart failure

Dr Ambarish Pandey, of the University of Texas

Fellow researcher Ambarish Pandey said: ‘Future physical activity guidelines should take these findings into consideration, and potentially provide stronger recommendations regarding the value of higher amounts of physical activity for the prevention of heart failure.

‘If you look at the general population, we've had tremendous success in reducing coronary heart disease over the last 30 years.

‘But heart failure rates have not declined enough. The findings from the present study suggest that higher levels of physical activity may help combat this growing burden of heart failure.’

Maureen Talbot, senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said: ‘The importance of regular physical activity in maintaining good heart health is already well known as the heart is a muscle and works more efficiently when exercised.

‘This study indicates that the risk of developing heart failure could be reduced by physical activity and that the reduction of this risk is greater if the levels of activity are greater.

‘Heart failure can be a devastating condition and the number of those affected in the UK remains stubbornly high. There are lots of reasons why you might be diagnosed with heart failure, with the most common cause being muscle damage following a heart attack.

‘While the results of this study are helpful and provide further motivation to the couch potatoes amongst us, it is still important that everyone be as active as they can manage to be.’