Overweight and unfit men are more likely to have high numbers of white blood cells. Why is this important? Because white blood cells play an important role in health, and elevated numbers can indicate the presence of infection or inflammation (inflammation is a sign of heart disease). But send diet and fitness to the rescue, and all can be well.

Pennington Biomedical Research Center conducted a study that looked at 452 healthy men. After finding the correlation between fitness/weight and elevated white blood cells, lead researcher and professor Tim Church says: "There is nothing worse than a risk factor that an individual cannot modify, but here are two risk factors -- obesity and fitness -- which they can do something about."

Well said, Professor. Reducing inflammation is just the latest in a long list of reasons to exercise and maintain a healthy weight.