THURSDAY, Oct. 1, 2026 (HealthDay News) -- Exercise-based cardiac rehabilitation (CR) improves outcomes for people with coronary heart disease (CHD) compared with no exercise, according to a study published online Sept. 18 in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.
Grace Dibben, Ph.D., from the University of Glasgow in the United Kingdom, and colleagues examined the clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of exercise-based CR compared to no exercise (control group), using data from 107 trials including 26,886 adults with CHD.
In terms of short-term follow-up (six to 12 months), the researchers found that exercise-based CR likely reduces all-cause mortality compared with no structured exercise (risk ratio [RR], 0.86; 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 0.74 to 1.00) and may reduce cardiovascular mortality (RR, 0.87; 95 percent CI, 0.68 to 1.11). A large reduction in myocardial infarction was seen in association with exercise-based CR (RR, 0.72; 95 percent CI, 0.54 to 0.95), while little to no difference in risk was seen for coronary artery bypass grafting or percutaneous coronary intervention. A reduction was likely in all-cause hospital admissions (RR, 0.65; 95 percent CI, 0.51 to 0.82), but effects on cardiovascular hospitalization were uncertain (RR, 0.80; 95 percent CI, 0.35 to 1.82). Clinically meaningful increases in health-related quality of life were seen with exercise-based CR across several domains. Exercise-based CR was shown to be cost-effective in eight economic evaluation studies in terms of quality-adjusted life years gained.
"Exercise-based cardiac rehabilitation is an inexpensive and cost-effective intervention, but right now it's underfunded and unprioritized," Dibben said in a statement. "We want this option to be available to everyone."
