Poor fitness is a better predictor of death than more obvious risk factors like heart disease, diabetes, or smoking, the Washington Post reports, citing a study in this month's New England Journal of Medicine.
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California researchers found that no matter what other risk factors a person had - from a history of heart attacks to chronic lung disease - the risk of death in the fittest patients was about half that of the least fit.
The study also concluded that when the least fit began to exercise - even modestly - their risk of death dropped the most of any group.
Experts told the Post that the study should pose as a wakeup call to doctors, who they said often don't recommend exercise to people with health problems. Instead, the physicians tend to concentrate on behaviours like lowering cholesterol or quitting smoking.
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