Study Design

We conducted a prospective, cohort study that consecutively enrolled patients who were advised by their cardiologist to engage in healthy lifestyle behaviors for primary or secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease. The objective of the study was to correlate improvement in weight loss, physical fitness, and physical activity achieved through a short-term exercise program with traditional and non-traditional biomarkers. We hypothesized that exercise modulates these non-traditional markers of risk independent of its effects on traditional risk factors. The study was approved by the Institutional Human Research Ethics Committee and confirmed to the Declaration of Helsinki. All participants provided written, informed consent before inclusion into the study. Anonymized data supporting the findings in this article are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.