Despite the general enthusiasm for diets, the consumption of calories is not the main factor leading to heart disease, here are the results of a 17-year study conducted at 9,800 Americans.

Physical exercises are a more effective means of preventing death from heart disease than simply controlling their weight, eliminating the presence of extra pounds, say specialists from Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York.

The fact remains - those who train more and eat more, still less risk of dying from the cardiovascular pathology. Energy exchange through exercise can be a key mechanism that reduces the risk of heart disease and increases the health index, life expectancy and quality.

Scientists used data from the state research of 1971-175 in the field of dietetics. In this study, experts compared physical activity, body mass index and caloric intake of food consumed, as well as the number of deaths in the test group before 1992.

Patients were divided into groups according to the number of calories consumed, exercise and body mass index.

Researchers described a "socio-economic portrait" of people with excess weight and obesity, consuming fewer calories and less engaged in physical education: older people, blacks, with lower incomes in the family, without higher education, with higher blood pressure and cholesterol, than those who eat and train more.

Over 17 years of study, 1531 patients died of heart disease. It turned out that those who trained and ate more were slimmer, and the mortality from heart disease was half that of those who trained and ate less, but were overweight.

Patients with excess weight or obesity who consumed the least amount of calories, with the lowest physical activity, had a significantly increased risk of death due to heart disease, in contrast to those who consumed a lot of calories, trained a lot, and had a normal weight. The difference in the death rate was 55%.

It is not necessarily that those who eat less necessarily lighter. And there is more - not equivalent to obesity.

The risk of death from heart disease in little trained patients with excess weight did not change, even if they started eating less.

All this pushes the idea that heart diseases depend not on one factor, but on a combination of behavioral, socioeconomic, genetic and clinical features.

Rational grain and practical achievement of this study: physical activity instead of caloric restriction is the best tactic of behavior and a way to prolong the healthy life of medicus. en.

Keywords:.