Exercise 'as good as medicines' in treating heart disease

Exercise may be just as good as medication to treat heart disease and should be included as a comparison when new drugs are being developed and tested, scientists said on Wednesday.

In a large review published in the British Medical Journal, researchers from Britain's London School of Economics and Harvard and Stanford universities in the United States found no statistically detectable differences between exercise and drugs for patients with coronary heart disease or prediabetes, when a person shows symptoms that may develop into full-blown diabetes.

For patients recovering from stroke, the review - which analyzed the results of 305 studies covering almost 340,000 participants - found that exercise was more effective than drug treatment.

Cardiovascular disease is the world's number one killer, leading to at least 17 million deaths a year.

"In cases where drug options provide only modest benefit, patients deserve to understand the relative impact that physical activity might have on their condition," the researchers wrote.

The review also said the amount of trial evidence on the health benefits of exercise is considerably smaller than that on drugs, which the scientists said may have had an impact on their results.

What Type of Exercise Is Best?

Exercise can be divided into three basic types:

Stretching or the slow lengthening of the muscles. Stretching the arms and legs before and after exercising helps prepare the muscles for activity and helps prevent injury and muscle strain. Regular stretching also increases your range of motion and flexibility.

Cardiovascular or aerobic is steady physical activity using large muscle groups. This type of exercise strengthens the heart and lungs and improves the body's ability to use oxygen. Aerobic exercise has the most benefits for your heart. Over time, aerobic exercise can help decrease your heart rate and blood pressure and improve your breathing (since your heart won't have to work as hard during exercise).

Strengthening exercises are repeated muscle contractions (tightening) until the muscle becomes tired. For people with heart failure, many strengthening exercises are not recommended (see below).

They argued that this "blind spot" over exercise in scientific evidence "prevents prescribers and their patients from understanding the clinical circumstances where drugs might provide only modest improvement but exercise could yield more profound or sustainable gains".

The review adds to a large body of evidence showing that regular exercise is key to human health.

According to the Geneva-based World Health Organization (WHO), physical inactivity is the fourth leading risk factor for global mortality, causing an estimated 3.2 million deaths around the world each year.