Why Exactly Does Your Heart Love Exercise?

A new study with mice may give us a better idea of why exactly exercise is such a benefit for our hearts down to the cellular level.

Researchers put mice on tiny treadmills and made them run for a half hour to mimic a good bout of exercise. The control mice sat around and watched the running mice. Then they immediately took samples of their hearts to see if anything was different.

And it was.

The researchers saw that there were a few significant differences in the cells of the heart, and while we will have you read the full article to get a more detailed analysis, essentially there were multiple signs that the hearts of those mice who ran just once were showing greater signs of handling stress and at retaining younger, healthier looking cells.

Now, these effects didn’t last. In fact, they started disappearing after an hour. So that doesn’t mean that one workout is all you need for a healthier heart. But it does show that repeated bouts of exercise could very well be incredibly beneficial to the cellular health of the heart.

Of course, this kind of study should move from mice to humans to confirm such things, but it’s good to see that there may be some real evidence of why exercise is the best thing you can do to keep your heart young and strong.

-Shane M.