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Lecture Notes

The next major risk factor for developing cardiovascular disease is physical inactivity, and research shows a consistent inverse relationship between physical activity and the mortality rate from all types of cardiovascular disease, and so that means with more physical activity you see less death from cardiovascular disease; that's what the inverse relationship means. And so in Chapter 4 we talked about the strengthening of the heart with physical activity, and on this slide you can see some of the direct effects of physical activity on your heart muscle and your cardiovascular system. Maintaining your oxygen supply to the heart into the brain decreases the likelihood of development of plaque buildup in the arteries, or atherosclerosis. We already learned that participating in physical activity decreases your heart rate at rest which, again, reduces the workload on your heart, which is good. Physical activity also allows your heart to function better, so we see increased stroke volume at rest. Again, all these things are things we covered in Chapter 4, the benefits of participating in physical activity for your heart. And finally, another possible mechanism by which physical activity is directly related to decreased risk of cardiovascular disease is through increases in the electrical stability of the heart, helping your heart to maintain its normal rhythm.