Prescribing endurance or resistance training to overweight patients could help reduce their CVD risk through reduced cardiac adipose tissue, a small Danish study suggests.

After 12 weeks of training, MRI scans of the 39 participants revealed those undertaking endurance exercise had 32% (9g) less epicardial fat than no-exercise controls while those performing resistance exercises had 24% (8g) less of this fat.

Both types of exercise also led to an increase in cardiac function, evidenced by great left ventricular mass, and fitness, the team from the University of Denmark reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

But the results suggested resistance training was superior as it also led to a decrease in pericardial adiposity — considered the more significant risk factor for CVD in terms of cardiac fat — as well as increased muscle strength, they wrote.