Exercise May Help Lower Cholesterol in Women

We all know this ,but here's another little reinforcement factoid. This article is by Roni Caryn Rabin from the New York Times. Women who did as little as one extra hour a week of moderate physical activity — like taking a brisk walk — had lower levels of harmful cholesterol than those who exercised less, according to a nine-year study of almost 9,000 fairly sedentary middle-aged adults. The study is one of the first to find a link between exercise and significant decreases in LDL, or “bad,” cholesterol, said the lead author, Keri L. Monda, a postdoctoral fellow in epidemiology at the University of North Carolina. The study did not find the decreases in men, however. Each hour of moderate exercise or half-hour of vigorous activity was associated with a decrease of almost 4 milligrams per deciliter of LDL cholesterol in white women, and more than 10 milligrams for black women. And for women past menopause, the benefits were even greater: 5.9 milligrams for whites and 14.68 for blacks.