Women in their 30's may be too busy with their jobs or too preoccupied with taking care of their family to find time to exercise or engage in sports but this very reason, may actually put them more at risk of developing heart disease, a potentially fatal condition that is responsible to about one in every four deaths in the U.S. per year.

A sedentary lifestyle is often associated with heart disease along with high blood pressure, obesity, high cholesterol levels and smoking but a new study suggests that for women in their 30's, not engaging in physical activity ups their risks for heart disease more than other risk factors.

In a new study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine on May 8, researchers examined the data of more than 32,000 women who participated in the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health, which has been monitoring the health and well-being of more than 50,000 women in Australia for nearly 20 years.

By analyzing how the women's health would be affected if any one of the four primary risk factors of heart disease namely smoking, being overweight, lack of physical activity and high blood pressure, is eliminated, the researchers found that inactivity is the leading risk factor for heart disease in women between 30 and 90 years old.

Although smoking is the primary contributor for heart disease risks in younger women between 22 and 27 years old, the rate of smoking in women 30 years old and over declines. The widespread lack of physical exercise among women in this age group has instead taken the lead in increasing the risks for heart problems.

"From about age 30, the population risk of heart disease attributable to inactivity outweighs that of other risk factors, including high BMI," the researchers wrote. "Programmes for the promotion and maintenance of physical activity deserve to be a much higher public health priority for women than they are now, across the adult lifespan."

The researchers said that 2,000 lives can be saved in Australia alone annually if all women between 30 and 90 years old engage in moderate exercise for at least 150 minutes per week.

"We have to get everyone to move more," study author Wendy Brown, from the School of Human Movement Studies at the University of Queensland in Australia told NewsDay. "From about age 30, physical activity levels decline. We need to do everything we can to prevent this."