The risks factor for cardiovascular disease have been categorize by the American Heart Association (AHA) as the following: (1) Major risks factors that can not be changed (increasing age, male gender, and heredity). (2) Major risk factors that can be changed (cigarette/tobacco smoke, high blood cholesterol, high blood pressure, and physical inactivity).(3) Other factors diabetes, Obesity, and stress.

Physiological Benefits of physical Activity

Research shows that moderate, not necessarily extensive exercise is sufficient for good health. For example, for both women and men, the chance of dying from cancer and several other diseases is greater for individuals with sedentary life-styles than those who engage in a daily brisk walk of 30 to 60 minutes (Cufman, 1993). Moderate regular exercise, lasting say 15 to 30 minutes, five times a week also has been found to improve health. In fact, high levels of exercise increase the risk of injuries (Edlin p.130 ).

If you exercise regularly, your overall risk of a heart attack is about 50 percent less than if you are inactive and out of shape. With routine exercise you can reach a level of physical

The belief that exercise is good for one's health has been the topic of scientific debate for several years. Serious scientific research designed to examine the role of exercise on mortality and morbidity was started in the 1950s, and data now show that suitable amounts of aerobic exercise not only reduce the risk of coronary heart disease, but also extend life expectancy. These data initially came by studying occupations that in degrees of physical activity, and more recently, by the energy expenditure (i.e., calorie expenditure) of various groups of people.

In the review of studies conducted on cardiovascular disease and exercise. All of the data collected suggested that there is a definite link between cardiovascular disease and exercise. Individuals that were leading active lives were at a lower risk than sedentary individuals. The data collected through the studies also strongly supports the conclusion that physically active individuals have higher survival rates and live longer.

Our bodies were designed to be used. We were not designed to sit around behind desks or computers all day. But we often do. Life has become so filled with conveniences that we tend to sit back and "let our fingers do the walking." We slouch in our sofas and channel surf rather than getting up and changing the TV channel. We drive our cars just a few blocks rather than walking the distance. We have become a nonphysical society (Edlin p.129 ).

A common method used to examine the role of exercise on health was to study occupations that varied in physical activity and compare heart disease rates of the various groups of workers. In general, these studies have shown that individuals who had the most physically demanding jobs suffered fewer fatal heart attacks than their sedentary counterparts. For example, conductors who walked up and down the stairs of double-decker buses in London had fewer heart attacks than the more sedentary bus drivers. In the United States, postal workers who walked and delivered the mail had a lower incidence of heart disease than those who just stood and sorted it.

An alternative surgical approach to opening a blocked artery is balloon angioplasty. In this procedure a thin wire is threaded from the femoral artery in the thigh up to the point of blockage in a coronary artery. Another thin tube containing a deflated balloon is then slipped over the wire and threaded up to the area of the arterial plaque. The balloon is inflated and pushes the plaque back into the wall of the artery thereby opening it up. Angioplasty costs much less than a bypass operation, but the frequency with which the blockage recurs is quite high, making a repeat procedure necessary. About 300,000 angioplasty operations are performed in the United States each year.

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