Heart attack: fitness pays off!

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Sportiness pays off: Those who are physically fit have a significantly reduced risk of dying from the consequences in the first year after a heart attack.

Smoking, high blood pressure, diabetes or obesity - all of these factors are not only harmful to cardiovascular health. Various studies have also shown that heart attack patients who meet one or more of these criteria have a poorer chance of survival.

But there is also one parameter that has a positive effect on resistance after a heart attack: physical fitness. Scientists at the Johns Hopkins Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Heart Disease in Baltimore have discovered that this is even more important than having the negative criteria under control.

Twice as many survive

Gabriel E. Shaya and his colleagues evaluated the data from 2,000 heart attack patients. They had all taken an exercise test on the treadmill in the six years before the heart attack. The physical fitness was recorded on the basis of the so-called MET values ​​(metabolic equivalents). For this purpose, the metabolism is determined on the basis of the oxygen consumption - first at rest, then under maximum stress. The fitter a person, the higher they can increase their metabolic rate.

The result: Six percent of the fitter patients (at least twelve METs) had died one month after the infarction, and more than twice as many (14 percent) of the less athletic patients (six METs or less). Each additional MET reduced the death rate by another eight to ten percent.

"Our study shows that it is worthwhile to improve your fitness because it increases the likelihood of survival after a heart attack - but also because it prevents it from occurring in the first place," the scientists conclude. And this is especially true for high-risk patients.

Preventive heart protection

And you don't have to perform at your best to prevent it. Even small everyday activities such as gardening or washing cars can reduce the risk of a heart attack or stroke in older people by almost 30 percent, according to the result of a Swedish study. Physical fitness also has a long-term positive effect on the heart: Those who are fit at a young age have a certain degree of heart protection decades later.

Source:

Shaya G. E. et al .: High Exercise Capacity Attenuates the Risk of Early Mortality After a First Myocardial Infarction, Mayo Clin Proc 2016, 91: 129-139.

Tags:  prevention alternative medicine teeth