Summertime is just starting, and people are already dreading the
thought of spending endless hours sweating to fit into those
scanty hot weather outfits. But a new study by a Pennington
Biomedical Research Center scientist shows that even minimal
exercise ' including walking or riding a stationary bike at low
resistance ' leads to significant health benefits for post-
menopausal women. These benefits could apply to the rest of the
population as well.  Pennington released the surprising results
in the Journal of the American Medical Association on May 15.
After six years of exhaustive studies, the research team, led by
Timothy Church, Ph.D., director of Pennington's preventative
medicine research laboratory, found that post-menopausal women
who exercised as little as 15 minutes a day, five days a week,
improved fitness levels.  The study followed 464 women from the
Dallas, Texas, area who were randomly divided into four groups:
a control group that did not exercise, and three other groups
that exercised for 71