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(CNN) – We've been working on you. But a new study goes a step further, finding a sedentary lifestyle is worse for you, diabetes and heart disease.
Dr. Wael Jaber, a cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic and senior author of the study, called the results "extremely surprising."
"Being unfit on a stress test has a worse prognosis, being far as death, than being hypertensive, being diabetic or being a current smoker," Jaber told CNN. "We've never seen something like this."
Jaber said, "It is a risk factor for hypertension, diabetes and smoking – if not stronger than all of them."
"It should be treated almost as a prescription, which is called exercise," he said.
Researchers retrospectively studied 122,007 patients who underwent exercise testing at Cleveland Clinic between January 1, 1991 and December 31, 2014 to measure all-cause mortality relating to the benefits of exercise and fitness. Those with the lowest rate accounted for 12% of the participants.
The study was published in the journal JAMA Network Open.
"Cardiovascular disease and diabetes are the most expensive diseases in the United States. We spend more than $ 200 billion per week treating these diseases and their complications. Rather than pay huge sums for disease treatment, we should be encouraging our patients and communities to be active and exercise daily, "said Dr. Jordan Metzl, Sports Medicine Physician at the Hospital for Special Surgery and author of the book" The Exercise Cure. "
Jaber said the other big revelation of the research is that fitness leads to life, with no limit to the benefit of aerobic exercise. Researchers have always been concerned that "ultra" exercisers might be at a higher risk of death, but the study found that not to be the case.
"There is no level of exercise or fitness that exposes you to risk," he said. "We can see that the ultra-fit still has lower mortality."
"In this study, the most fit people did the best," said Metzl, who was not involved in the study. "Once cleared by their physicians, patients should not be afraid of exercise intensity."
The benefits of exercise, "probably a little more pronounced in females," Jaber said. "Whether you're in your 40s or your 80s, you will benefit in the same way."
The risks, he said, became more shocking when they did not exercise much. "We all know that a sedentary lifestyle or being unfit has some risk. But I'm surprised they are still suffering, as well as diabetes or even end-stage disease. "
"People who do not perform very well on a treadmill test," Jaber said, "have almost double the risk of people with kidney failure on dialysis."
What made the study so unique, beyond the sheer number of people studied, that said that researchers were not relying on patients self-reporting their exercise. "This is not the patients telling us what they do," Jaber said. "This is us testing them and figuring out objectively the real measure of what they do."
Comparing those with a sedentary lifestyle to the top exercise performers, he said, the risk associated with death is "500% higher."
"If you compare the risk of sitting versus the highest performing on the exercise test, the risk is about three times higher than smoking," Jaber explained.
Regularly, he said, still showed a risk 390% higher. "There is no ceiling for the benefit of exercise," he said. "" There's no age limit that does not benefit from being physically fit. "
Dr. Satjit Bhusri, a cardiologist at Lenox Hill Hospital, who was not involved in the study, said this reinforces what we know. "Sedentary, Western lifestyles have lead to a higher incidence of heart disease and this shows that it's editable. It's reversible, "he explained, adding that doctors are really good at treating patients who have had cardiovascular events but they can be prevented. "We're meant to walk, run, exercise. It's all about getting up and moving. "
For patients, especially those who live in sedentary lifestyle, Jaber said, "You should ask for a prescription from your doctor for exercise."
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