In this prospective study of 27,055 apparently healthy women from the Women Health Study who were followed for about 11 years (979 cardiovascular disease (CVD) events), Mora et al. identified key risk factors believed to mediate the well-known inverse relationship between physical activity and CVD. They found that physical activity decreased CVD risk by 30 to 50%. Although risk factors did not change much across physical activity categories, this study found that underlying risk factors such as inflammatory/hemostatic markers (C-reactive protein, fibrinogen, intracellular adhesion molecule-1), blood pressure, lipids, body mass index, and glucose-insulin homeostasis markers largely explained (59%) this relationship. These results suggest that modest changes to these CVD risk factors may account for the bulk of physical activity’s benefits to CVD risk.
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