You must sweat it out to be healthy: Australian study

A giant study of Australians exercising habits has determined people need to be vigorous enough when doing so to work up a sweat to reap the benefits.

A team from Queensland's James Cook University collected data from more than 200,000 Australians and found people who worked up sustained sweats were 13 percent less likely to die prematurely than those who did moderate exercise such as walking.

Fairfax Media reported on Wednesday that study author Klaus Gebel also deduced simply making less than a third of your exercise vigorous was linked to a 9 percent decreased risk of early death.

The findings were first reported in the respected Australian Internal Medicine journal.

"If you think of people who maybe so far have only been doing some walking, it could make a significant difference if on top of that they maybe have something like 20 to 30 minutes per week, not necessarily a lot, of doing something vigorous that makes them sweat and significantly increases their breathing rate," he said.

"It doesn't necessarily even have to be going to the gym, it could be vigorous gardening."

"For those who actually met the physical activity requirements, the risk of death was almost half that of those who didn't do any physical activity."

Improving fitness also decreases inflammation, blood fats and blood pressure and helps overall bodily function. Enditem