The JAMA article also cast doubt on the additional benefits of higher levels of exercise, with its research pointing to a tapering off and even a decrease in cardiovascular health and life-expectancy.
A Copenhagen City heart study was used to suggest that while moderate increases in the amount of exercise did result in mortality benefits, physical activity beyond a certain point, seen here to be more than 240 minutes per week, yielded no additional health advantages.
However, the existence of an upper limit to exercise benefits will be irrelevant to many Brits, 40% of whom admitted to doing no moderate exercise at all in a 2015 study by the British Heart Foundation, confirming what some have labelled an "inactivity pandemic".