Exercise is good for you for tons of different reasons. It relieves stress, keeps our bones and muscles strong, and improves our cardiovascular health. But why exercise has a positive effect on our heart health has always been less clear.
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A recent study conducted on mice concluded that exercise, particularly cardio, helped the animals regenerate over four times more heart tissue. The research published on Nature Communications studied these mice for over eight weeks, where healthy mice ran over 3 miles a day on a running wheel. The study also tested rodents who had suffered from heart attacks and concluded that if they exercised consistently they would still develop new heart tissue.
Why is this information important? Well, Popular Science reports that the adult heart has a very limited ability to regenerate heart cells and this has lead to tons of trouble in the past. Young adults can renew about 1 percent of their heart cells in a year, and the older we get, the more our hearts lose this capability. This is bad thing because studies prove that damage on heart cells, even in a small amount of them, can result in heart failure and disease.
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If exercise manages to help our hearts create even a small amount of cells, the difference could be really important, saving lives and preventing heart attacks. Repetitive exercise has been proven to increase the heart’s size and it’s functioning, preventing heart failure, and helping those who suffered from heart attacks recover more easily.
