Not exercising worse than smoking, study reveals

A new study finds not exercising can be worse than smoking or having heart disease.

Researchers at the Cleveland Clinic studied 122,007 patients who underwent treadmill testing between 1991 and 2014. They found a sedentary lifestyle is worse for your health then smoking, diabetes or heart disease.

Dr. Wael Jaber, a cardiologist and senior author of this study, called the results "extremely surprising."

RELATED: Orangetheory Fitness: ABC11's Bridget Condon and Duke's Nolan Smith try it out

"Being unfit on a treadmill or in an exercise stress test has a worse prognosis, as far as death, than being hypertensive, being diabetic or being a current smoker," Jaber told CNN. "We've never seen something as pronounced as this and as objective as this."

Another big revelation from the research is that fitness leads to a longer lifespan.

Researchers have always been concerned that people who exercise excessively might be at higher risk of death, but the study found that not to be the case.