Research has suggested that as much as 90 percent of the risk of cardiovascular disease is preventable through the adoption of healthy lifestyle behaviors, including regular physical activity.

More than half of women with cardiovascular disease in the United States are not getting enough physical activity — a figure that has increased over the past decade, according to a study published earlier this month in JAMA Network Open.

The study’s findings are troubling. Cardiovascular disease, which includes coronary heart disease, heart attack, stroke, peripheral artery disease and various heart rhythm disturbances, is the leading cause of death among women in the U.S. Each year, about 400,000 American women die from the disease — about the same number as from cancer, diabetes and chronic lower respiratory diseases combined.

Cardiovascular disease is particularly prevalent among black women. About 48 percent of black women aged 20 and older have cardiovascular disease compared to 32 percent of white women and 33 percent of Hispanic women, according to the American Heart Association (AHA).

Research has suggested that as much as 90 percent of the risk of cardiovascular disease is preventable through the adoption of healthy lifestyle behaviors, including regular physical activity. Exercise has also been shown to help people already diagnosed with cardiovascular disease by reducing the risk of a repeat heart attack, for example, and improving quality of life.

“Physical activity is a known, cost-effective prevention strategy for women with and without cardiovascular disease, and our study shows worsening health and financial trends over time among women with cardiovascular disease who don’t get enough physical activity,” said lead author Dr. Victor Okunrintemi, a former research fellow at Johns Hopkins who is now an internal medicine resident at East Carolina University, in a released statement.

“We have more reason than ever to encourage women with cardiovascular disease to move more,” he added.

Okunrintemi and his co-authors call on health officials to implement “specific interventions targeting older women, those from lower socioeconomic status, and racial/ethnic minorities” so that more women in these high-risk groups can get become physically active — and lead healthier lives.