Heart protection: Fitness works for decades
Christiane Fux studied journalism and psychology in Hamburg. The experienced medical editor has been writing magazine articles, news and factual texts on all conceivable health topics since 2001. In addition to her work for, Christiane Fux is also active in prose. Her first crime novel was published in 2012, and she also writes, designs and publishes her own crime plays.
More posts by Christiane Fux All content is checked by medical journalists.Those who are fit at a young age will also benefit decades later: The risk of stroke and heart attack decreases - and that of premature death as a whole.
Sport has a long-term effect, a study has now confirmed again. For this purpose, Ravi Shah from the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston evaluated data from almost 5,000 participants who were between 18 and 30 years old at the start of the study. In 1985 or 1986 they took a performance test on a bicycle ergometer. A program of 9 x 2 minutes with increasing intensity was planned. The participants' health was then monitored for an average of 27 years.
The big evaluation at the end showed that with every minute that the participants held out longer in this first fitness test, their probability of dying fell by 15 percent over the course of the next almost three decades. The risk of a heart attack, stroke or having to go to hospital because of a heart attack or weak heart decreased by twelve percent in this case.
For the evaluation, the scientists had calculated out the influence of other factors such as age, origin, gender and weight.
Increasing risk of death
Physical activity at an early age protects the heart - but it is at least as important to stay on the ball while exercising. About half of the participants took a second fitness test seven years after the first. With every minute that performance deteriorated, the subjects' risk of dying increased by 21 percent during the study period. That for cardiovascular disease increased by 20 percent.
However, the researchers were astonished that physical fitness at a young age apparently had no significant influence on the condition of the coronary arteries, which supply the heart muscle with blood: They were affected by atherosclerosis in the less fit and in the fitter participants alike. Usually, such vascular changes are considered a major risk factor for heart and brain infarctions.
"This report focuses on the critical value of physical activity and cardiovascular fitness for cardiovascular disease," the researchers emphasize.They demand that in the future the fitness level of young people be determined and that their physical fitness be promoted in order to prevent long-term damage to the cardiovascular system.
Sedentary youth
The results of the study on adult health in Germany (DEGS1) show that there is still much need for action in this regard. It showed that in Germany young adults in particular are not doing enough physical activity. Every fourth person in the group of 18 to 29 year olds does little or no physical activity.
The WHO recommends adults a weekly workload of at least 2.5 hours of moderately strenuous or 75 minutes of very strenuous activity.
