Exercise could improve heart health drastically, Harvard researchers have found. Even moderate amounts of it, the Daily Mail reported.
The new study found moving your body regularly helps drive cells into rhythm of regeneration. This helps tackle decay and inflammation, which can cause fatigue and heart disease.
The goal of the study was to test whether there was an organic method to enhance the regenerative capacity of heart muscle cells. The most safe and inexpensive way they chose was exercise.
Researchers came to this conclusion after conducting experiments on mice. They compared mice that exercised that made four times as many new heart muscle cells to mice that moved a lot less.
"Maintaining a healthy heart requires balancing the loss of heart muscle cells due to injury or ageing with the regeneration or birth of new heart muscle cells," lead author Professor of medicine Dr Anthony Rosenzweig at Harvard Medical School in Boston, told the Daily Mail.
Adding, "Our study suggests exercise can help tip the balance in favour of regeneration."
Fellow author Harvard Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology Dr Richard Lee told the Daily Mail: "Our study shows that you might be able to make your heart younger by exercising more every day."
Any kind of intervention that helps increase new heart cell formation could prevent heart failure.
The study was originally published in the journal Nature Communications.
