Up to 30 minutes of exercise, everyday could have big benefits on the quality of life sedentary or overweight women, according to a study presented Thursday at an American Heart Association Conference on Nutrition, Physical Activity and Metabolism in Colorado Springs.

Researchers at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge led by director Timothy S. Church, MD and Angela Thompson, MSPH, looked at 430 obese women with an average age of 57 who were divided in four groups. Three groups exercised at various levels, while one group did not exercise at all. One group did about 73 minutes of exercise a week, another about 135 and the third one did around 190. The exercise was divided in three or four sessions during the week.

By the end of the experiment, after six months, the women who had exercised the most had improved their life in seven categories out of eight. They improved their physical function and general health by 7 percent and their vitality by 16.6 percent. They gained 11.5 percent in performing work or other activities, 11.6 percent in emotional health and more than 5 percent in social functioning.

However, the surprise was that even the women who had exercised merely 10 minutes a day noticed improvements, which means that even people who don’t have too much time or energy can still get results.

“While the women who participated in the highest exercise group saw the greatest improvements in most quality of life scales, women in the lowest exercise group also saw improvements. The public health message is tremendous, because it provides further support for the notion that even if someone cannot exercise an hour or more daily, getting out and exercising 10 to 30 minutes per day is beneficial, too,” Thompson said, according to CTV.ca.

"That's basically just 10 minutes of daily walking at a brisk pace," Dr. Church said of the low exercise group.

The study was among the first to examine how exercise could improve the quality of life of postmenopausal women who were extremely out of shape but otherwise healthy, Dr. Church said. The study also updates a 2007 study by Dr. Church and others in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

According to The Heart and Stroke Foundation, all adults should get 30 to 60 minutes of physical activity on most days of the week to reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke.