Exercise may cancel out heart risks if you are overweight & middle-age

Exercise may cancel out the heart risks of being overweight or obese if you are middle-age, a new observational study in the Netherlands suggests.

The research, published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, found that normal-weight, overweight or obese people with a high level of physical activity saw a decreased risk of heart disease.

Researchers in the Netherlands analysed more than 5,000 people ages 55 and older who did not have heart disease, and recorded their body mass index (BMI), physical activity level, diet, education, family history of heart disease, alcohol use and smoking at baseline.

Regardless of BMI category, any level of exercise was linked with a reduced risk of heart disease, the study found. Researchers did not observe an association between BMI as a single factor and heart disease.

Researchers wrote that having excess weight accelerates atherosclerosis, which can lead to heart disease, but exercise appears to reverse that effect by lowering plaque and reducing oxygen demand on the heart.