About one in four deaths in the United States are due to heart disease. But a new study suggests that even if you have a genetic risk for heart disease, there’s a simple way to combat it: Exercise.

In the study, researchers looked at data from nearly 500,000 people from England, Scotland and Wales who were participating in a trial called the U.K. Biobank Study. At the start of the trial, the men and women allowed researchers to assess their genetic predispositions for heart disease. They also self-reported their exercise, wore accelerometers to subjectively measure their daily physical activity, wore hand dynamometers to measure their grip strength, and underwent a cycling test to measure their heart fitness.

Read more