Kids need more exercise to cut heart risk - study

LONDON, July 21 (Reuters) Children need to do more exercise than recommended in international guidelines to reduce their risk of developing cardiovascular disease, a team of researchers said.

Instead of one hour a day of moderate physical activity, youngsters may need to do 90 minutes to stave off high blood pressure, raised cholesterol levels and other risk factors that can lead to heart problems.

''Physical activity levels need to be higher than the current international guidelines of at least one hour per day,'' said Lars Bo Andersen of the Norwegian School of Sports Science in Oslo yesterday.

Andersen and his team assessed the impact of exercise on 1,732 children from Denmark, Estonia and Portugal, aged either nine or 15.

They compared the amount of exercise they did every day and measured their risks of developing heart disease.

They found that the more the children exercised, the more their combined risks factor score decreased.

Nine-year-olds who did 116 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise a day and the teens who exercised for 88 minutes daily had the lowest risk factor scores, according to the research published in The Lancet medical journal.

Cardiovascular disease is a leading killer in developed countries. High blood pressure, raised cholesterol levels, inactivity, obesity and diabetes, which raise the odds of developing the illness, can develop from childhood.

In a commentary on the research, Ram Weiss and Itamar Raz of the Hebrew University Hospital in Jerusalem said the impact of exercise on heart disease risk was the same in lean or overweight children.

''Those who might potentially benefit the most from increased physical activity are probably those who are less fit to begin with,'' they added.

REUTERS BDP HS0852