What’s the Best Exercise for Heart Health?

A combination of weight training and aerobic exercise might be the best prescription for overweight people at risk for diabetes and heart disease, a new study suggests. People doing only aerobic exercise dropped weight and inches off their waistlines — so an aerobic-only program is also a good (and less time-consuming) option, researchers said. Those in the study who just lifted weights saw very little benefit in terms of heart health, although they did gain strength. “Aerobic plus resistance is clearly the optimal program,” said Dr. Timothy Church, who studies exercise and disease at Louisiana State University’s Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge. Because aerobic exercise alone seemed to be almost as good, if not as good, as aerobic and resistance training combined, Dr. Bateman said that, “When you’re weighing the time commitment that you’re going to spend, if your overall goal is to…improve your diabetes and heart disease risks, our study would suggest that aerobic exercise is the best way to better those outcomes.” Am J Cardiol 2011