Exercising moderately for one hour per day could significantly reduce a person's risk of developing heart failure, a new study suggests.

Heart failure is a potentially life-threatening condition which leads to the heart being unable to pump enough blood around the body. Symptoms include tiredness, shortness of breath, dizziness and swollen ankles and around 10,000 new cases are diagnosed in Ireland every year.

According to Swedish researchers, the current risk of death within five years of a diagnosis of the condition is between 30 and 50%. They set out to investigate what impact exercise could have on this.

They followed the progress of almost 40,000 people aged between 20 and 90, none of whom had heart failure at the beginning of the study.

The researchers found that the more active a person was, the lower their risk of developing heart failure.

People who exercised the most - at least 60 minutes of moderate activity or 30 minutes of vigorous activity every day - had a 46% reduced risk of developing the condition.

The results were the same for men and women.

Those who did go on to develop heart failure tended to be older, male, with poorer education, a higher body mass index (BMI), a higher waist-to-hip ratio and a history of diabetes, heart attack, high cholesterol and high blood pressure.

According to the study's co-author, Dr Kasper Andersen of Uppsala University, the Western world ‘promotes a sedentary lifestyle'.

"There are often no healthy alternative forms of transportation, in many buildings it is hard to find the stairs, and at home television and computers encourage sedentary behavior...But you do not need to run a marathon to gain the benefits of physical activity," he insisted.

He pointed out that even ‘quite low levels' of physical activity can benefit a person's health.

"Physical activity lowers many heart disease risk factors, which in turn lowers the risk of developing heart failure as well as other heart diseases...Making it easier and safer to walk, bicycle or take the stairs could make a big difference. Our research suggests that everyone could benefit from getting out there and moving every day," Dr Andersen said.

Details of these findings are published in the journal, Circulation: Heart Failure.