Being a party animal could make you thinner and ward off heart disease, new study shows

Cameron Diaz has recently revealed that one of her favorite ways to get her sweat on is by dancing naked.

And it turns out, getting on the dance floor – clothed or otherwise – could help you lose weight and ward off issues like high blood pressure and heart attack. 

The 50-year-old revealed last year that she’s taken some inspiration from her Charlie’s Angels character, Natalie, and loves breaking out into spontaneous dance routines in her house, sometimes without clothes.

‘I don’t think enough people realize there are a lot of things you can do in a small space,’ she told E! News. ‘A really great thing is to just put your headphones in, put on a playlist, and dance for like 15 minutes straight as hard as you can.’

‘Then, you just go take a shower and start your day.’ 

And researchers in China have revealed that there may be scientific benefits to this. 

Cameron Diaz, 50, recently revealed that one of her favorite workouts is dancing, similar to her character, Natalie, from Charlie’s Angels

Dancing has been shown to lead to weight loss and improve mobility and cognition

In a review published Wednesday in the journal PLOS One, researchers at Hunan University evaluated 646 overweight and obese adults across 10 different studies. 

They found that dancing regularly for at least three months improved body composition by lowering body mass index (BMI) and fat and reducing waist circumference in obese participants.

They also showed that more creative dances like jazz and hip hop led to greater fat loss compared to more traditional dances like ballet and ballroom dancing. 

By lowering obesity, which plagues more than one-third of Americans, the researchers noted that dancing could reduce the risk of obesity-related diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure, heart attack, and stroke.

Yaya Zhang, study author and PhD student at Hunan University, said: ‘Dance is effective on fat loss in people with overweight and obesity, and has a significant improvement on body composition and morphology.’

‘For its high efficiency and greater sense of enjoyment, dance can be a beneficial exercise intervention for fat loss.’

‘As a form of physical activity that integrates exercise, entertainment, and sociality, dance possesses innate advantages in fostering motivation for exercise.’

The team noted that while similar fat loss was seen in aerobic exercise, resistance training, and high-intensity interval training, dance had an advantage in reducing fat percentage, as it is a full body exercise and is less prone to causing fatigue.

Therefore, it is much easier to sustain than other forms of exercise. 

The team noted that it can be particularly effective for people under age 45 to ward off diseases later in life that are linked to obesity.

A 2018 study also found that exercise can be a beneficial form of exercise, as it helped older women improve their balance and cognition.  

Exercise remains one of the main treatments for the obesity, but sustaining long term exercise habits is no easy task.

The researchers believe that dance could be an entertaining and accessible way to solve this issue. 

The team noted that more research is needed on the topic.