CERG International page

15/09/2025

"I still find it puzzling why physical activity and peak oxygen uptake have yet to be incorporated into the original Framingham risk model, despite strong evidence for its predictive power"

American researchers have created a new calculator that calculates how old your heart is. It is based on classic risk factors such as age, blood pressure, cholesterol and smoking habits. However, our Professor Ulrik Wisløff thinks it should also include exercise habits, and encourages people to use our method instead: fitnessage.miahealth.no

Scientists created a new online calculator that reveals your heart’s age and your risk of heart disease.

12/09/2025

Four out of ten healthy adults have a body fat percentage indicating obesity. At the group level, only the physically active part of the population has a normal body fat percentage.

Our results show that far more people are overweight when body fat percentage is used as a measure of body composition instead of BMI. For example, one in three with a normal BMI has a body fat percentage that corresponds to overweight or obesity.

Read more about the study in the Mia Health app or the journal Progress in Cardiovascular Diseases:
sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0033062024000896

21/01/2025

"Fartlek training is quite a good way to improve fitness. I do it and I recommend it to people who say they don’t like exercise, because it’s never boring," our Professor Ulrik Wisloff. Read more in the Washington Post.

“Fartleks” are an effective way to add intensity to activities, which a growing body of science indicates can make your workouts more beneficial.

08/01/2025

Our new activity standard AQ is now available in more than 40 countries, including all of Europe, Northern America, Australia and Brazil. To start measuring your AQ, you could download the Mia Health app from App Store or Play Store.

AQ is an advanced but very easy-to-use scoring system that rewards you for any physical activity that increases your heart rate above a certain level. Your unique AQ tells you exactly how much better health you get from the physical activity you do, and our research shows that everything from 25 AQ and upwards is linked to reduced risk of cancer, cardiovascular diseases and premature death.

AQ (Activity Quotient) from NTNU and Mia Health shows you the health effects of the activity you do, based on up-to-date research.

03/12/2024

CERG is organizing two outstanding courses during the winter/spring 2025 with worldleading speakers and that each gives 7,5 credits from NTNU.

1. Exercise Training and Cardiovascular Health: ntnu.no/videre/exercise-training-and-cardiovascular-health
2. Exercise and Brain Health:
https://www.ntnu.no/videre/exercise-and-brain-health

Deadline for signing up is December 15th.

Embark on a journey to discover the remarkable connection between exercise and cardiovascular health! In this course, we will explore leading science on exercise as medicine for the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease and give you practical insights to promote enhanced the vitality th...

23/10/2023

🎉Congrats to Ada N. Nordeidet et al. on winning the October award 🏆in Physiological Genomics for "Exploring shared genetics between maximal oxygen uptake & disease: the HUNT study."

https://ow.ly/FSqx50PVGrq

CERG International page
NTNU - Norwegian University of Science and Technology
The University of Queensland - International

25/09/2023

Do genes explain why physically active people also have better health? Results from our latest study in the field may indicate that some of the health benefits in those who are physically active are due to genes - and not the physical activity itself.

However, the effect size is so small that the findings probably have low practical significance. And remember: Physical activity improves health, no matter how good or bad your genes may be.

Read more at https://www.ntnu.edu/cerg/publications #13-23

Physical activity (PA), aerobic fitness, and cardiometabolic diseases (CMD) are highly heritable multifactorial phenotypes. Shared genetic factors may underlie the associations between higher levels of PA and better aerobic fitness and a lower risk for CMDs. We aimed to study how PA genotype associa...

22/09/2023

"What happened when our researcher, Ulrik Wisloff, defied the experts — and built a career learning how high intensity interval training can help everyone from heart patients to ageing Baby Boomers, and possibly even Alzheimer's patients — but not in the way you might think?"

Update yourself on Ulrik's story and our research in this fabulous new episode of the 63 Degrees North podcast by Norwegian SciTech News, where you will also meet our researchers Dorthe Berg Stensvold and Atefe R. Tari.

We all know that exercise is good for us, but how much, how hard, how long? One exercise physiologist's research journey to find the answers.

10/05/2023

Measuring fitness can provide more precise cardiac diagnostics. With the traditional method for assessing heart size, nearly all elite athletes met the criteria for pathological left ventricular enlargement, while only 40% of heart failure patients did the same. However, when we took into account the maximum oxygen uptake (VO2 max) of the participants, the results were completely opposite: None of the elite athletes, but almost all of the patients, had enlarged hearts.

A more detailed summary of our new research results can be found at https://www.ntnu.edu/cerg/publications #5-23
The full study is available in European Heart Journal: Cardiovascular Imaging: https://academic.oup.com/ehjcimaging/advance-article/doi/10.1093/ehjci/jead034/7129333?login=true

28/04/2023

Why does exercise lead to higher maximum oxygen uptake in patients with diastolic heart failure? Based on the results from our EU funded OptimEx study, improved oxygen utilization at the muscular level might be the key factor. Neither heart nor blood vessel function improved in the supervised exercise groups compared to the control group.

Read a summary of the latest publication from from the OptimEx project at our website (ntnu.edu/cerg/publications #4-23) or in JACC: Heart Failure (sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213177923000306) , compared to the control group that did not received supervised exercise.

Exercise training improves peak oxygen uptake (V.O2peak) in heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF). Multiple adaptations have been add…

26/04/2023

What do we know about genes, fitness, and lifestyle diseases? Our researchers Marie Klevjer, Ada Nilsen Nordeidet and Anja Bye have summed up the best and most recent research studies on genes related to maximum oxygen uptake, physical activity level, and exercise response. Read the full paper at sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2468867323000196, or check out our short summary at ntnu.edu/cerg/publications #3-23

Scientific publications by CERG