IJCS | Volume 32, Nº4, July/August 2019

314 Figure 1 - Number of articles (upper panel) and percentage of them as related to the term "heart" (lower panel) that were indexed by PubMed per year using the combining terms "heart (data extracted from PubMed). Araújo & Mesquita Exercise and sport: a five-star path for cv health Int J Cardiovasc Sci. 2019;32(4):313-316 Editorial are known to be potentially prevented and treated by exercise, exponentially increases. In addition, with the recent proposal of the 2018 US Federal Physical Activity Guidelines 3 suggesting a minimum of 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity daily to children aged between 6 and 17 years old and the increase the minimum dose from 150 minutes to 300 minutes a week of moderate-intensity, or 75 minutes to 150 minutes a week of vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity, or an equivalent combination of moderate- and vigorous- intensity aerobic activity for adults, it can be expected that the percentage of individuals achieving these new standards will probably decrease. One of the most relevant health status indicators is the individual’s level of physical fitness. 6 Physical fitness includes aerobic and non-aerobic components, and the latter involvesmuscle strength/power, flexibility, balance and body composition. There is a strong association between lack of regular exercise and poor levels of physical fitness. Based on solid data from important cohort studies, it is well-established that aerobic fitness is inversely and strongly related, in a dose-dependent manner, with higher rates of cardiovascular, cancer and all-cause mortality. 7,8 More recent observational data have also indicated that low levels of non-aerobic or musculoskeletal fitness are also strongly associated with poor survival in the following six years. 9 This outstanding thematic issue of the International Journal of Cardiovascular Sciences, fully dedicated to exercise/sport and cardiovascular health, brings together 16 other contributions including original articles, review articles, viewpoints, one case report and one special communication, written by a highly qualified team of 78 authors (16 foreigners) from seven different countries.