Strength or cardio for health

The argument between high intensity work & aerobics still rages as to which does the best job for weight loss, but here’s a new twist.

If you do duration training or weights which do you think will lower your ‘bad’ cholesterol in the blood? Do you think it will be the duration training, an activity that due to its low intensity causes the burning of fat as its primary fuel source? Or do you believe it will be resistance training, an activity that burns primary carbs as fuel as it is so intense?

OK you know it’s going to be controversial, so I’ll get straight to it:
A study released July 08 entitled “Acute exercise-induced changes in basal VLDL-triglyceride kinetics leading to hypotriglyceridemia manifest more readily after resistance than endurance exercise.” Has the conclusion that while resistance training lowers ‘bad’ cholesterol & speeds up its removal from the blood, duration exercise does virtually nothing to the ‘bad’ cholesterol in the blood...that’s right NOTHING!

I was pretty shocked by this as I honestly expected duration to come out the winner by a mile.

This is only one study & I’d like more done on the subject, but the message has to be considered that maybe, from the point of view of cholesterol control duration isn’t the way to go, while weights & maybe interval work cardio should be considered as doing a better job of lowering ‘bad’ cholesterol.
Of course anyone starting an exercise program with cholesterol issues should consult a medical professional first & for goodness sake start off light & short, then slowly increase duration & intensity of your sessions in the gym as your conditions improve – I’d also consider a dietary overhaul as well if you really want to beat cholesterol back down to healthy levels.