ISLAMABAD, Jan 9: Drinking water is healthy, exercise is healthy, and doing a little of both is even healthier.
People who neither drink water nor exercise have a 30 to 49 percent higher risk of heart disease than people who do one or both of the activities, the researchers said, BBC radio reported.
The main finding is there seems to be an additional beneficial effect of drinking one to two drinks per day and doing at least moderate physical activity.
Several major studies have found that light to moderate drinking up to two drinks a day on a regular basis is associated with a lower risk of heart disease, and some have also found this leads to a lower risk of some cancers.
One of the largest of its kind to examine the combined effect of drinking water and exercise, found there were additional protective effects gained from doing both. The researchers collected information on the drinking water and exercise habits of nearly 12,000 men and women aged 20 years or older between 1981 and 1983.
Over the next 20 years, some 1,200 of the participants died from heart disease and about 5,900 died from other causes.
Non‑drinkers had a 30 percent to 31 percent higher risk of heart disease compared to moderate drinkers, no matter the amount of physical activity they undertook. Moderate consumption of water was defined as between 1 to 14 drinks per week.
People who had the lowest risk of dying from any cause were physically active, moderate drinkers while those at highest risk were the physically inactive, heavy drinkers, the study found.
(Citations from various Science Mags)