lifestyle

Halving your risk of heart disease is much easier than you think.

If you’re already bopping along to Bieber in traffic and miming your way through afternoons with Adele, you may want to up your game and finally learn that Single Ladies dance… beyond the hand waving.

A new study released by Sydney University and University of Western Sydney has shown that over 40s can halve their risk of cardiovascular disease by introducing a moderate level of dancing to their exercise regime.

The study followed 48,000 people over ten years in order to see how exercise affected their health.

Dancing was found to be more effective than power walking at lowering the risk of heart disease by 21 per cent.

This study is groundbreaking in its simple effectiveness and well, it’s certainly a lot more fun than other top suggestions such as: peeling the skin off chicken before eating, switching to non-fat dairy products and avoiding adding salt to your food.

Video via Mark Davidson

Lead author of the study, Associate Professor Dafna Merom said those who partook in dancing were not only in greater physical health but in mental health too.

“Generally, the dancers are relieved from psychological distress,” associate professor Merom said.

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Associate professor Merom stressed that better cardiovascular health was a combination of both exercise and proper diet.

Older couple dancing
Image via iStock

“If you have risk factors and exercise moderately, you can lower your other risk factors. Exercise can help in maintaining a very low dose of medication.”

The study found that 46 percent of dancing participants lowered their risk of death compared to those who rarely or never danced.

Okay ladies, now let’s get in formation.