Any exercise is beneficial, but it takes a little more effort to gain additional health benefits, finds a new study. Even with a half-hour of slow walking, obese middle-aged adults were able to reduce bit of weight and a couple of inches from their waistline. It took higher-intensity exercise to reduce their blood sugar levels, which in the long run may reduce the risk of type-2 diabetes.

Study's lead researcher Robert Ross, an exercise physiologist at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada said that participants who took part in the study were middle-aged, sedentary and Robert Ross, an exercise physiologist at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada.

The researchers said that one does not have to scare from the word high-intensity, which just means brisk walking on a treadmill. Therefore, it can be said that performing high-intensity exercise can be done.

Dr. Timothy Church, a professor of preventive medicine at Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, was of the view that there are very few studies carried out on exercise intensity. It would not be wrong to affirm that the study has filled a gap and also clears one thing that intensity does matter.

Therefore, there are chances that the study findings may lead to the alteration of current exercise guidelines. Not only the participants who exercised at a higher intensity witnessed improved blood-sugar levels, but also saw a bigger improvement in their cardiovascular fitness.

In the study, 300 people in their 40s and 50s took part and were abdominally obese and did little to no regular exercise. They were randomly assigned to either be control group or one of three exercise groups.

All the exercisers attended five supervised sessions a week for six month. One of the groups did a low amount of low-intensity activity. Another group did the low-intensity regimen for a longer time period and the third exercise group did higher-intensity group.

After six months, all the three exercise groups had lost weight and few inches from their waistlines. But it was only the high-intensity group in which improvements in blood sugar levels were seen.