Although most people know that exercise is good for you, there’s new evidence that supports the theory that even healthy people may help prevent a heart attack by exercising regularly.
The new study, which was published in European Heart Journal, indicates that even men and women with no signs of cardiovascular problems can have a heart attack and that low cardiorespiratory fitness may be a good indicator for heart disease risk.
Increasing heart attack risk
The recent research—conducted by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway—looked at cardiorespiratory fitness for 4,527 people who were considered “healthy and fit.”
The team of scientists measured the participants’ ability to supply muscles with oxygen while they ran on a treadmill. The participants wore a heart rate monitor and an oxygen mask. Factors such as weight and the strength and health of the participants’ respiratory system were all calculated. In addition, data on each participant included things like BMI, physical activity, history of heart disease, cholesterol, blood pressure, alcohol intake and smoking status.
The researchers studied the participants for nearly nine years.
The results of the study
After the nine years, only 3.3% of the participants had developed heart disease, died from the disease or needed a coronary artery bypass graft to unclog the arteries and release more blood to the heart.
There was a link between better cardiorespiratory fitness and decreased cardiovascular risk, including a decreased risk of a heart attack.
“We found a strong link between greater fitness and reduced risk of coronary event during the nine years of follow-up in a very healthy sample of adults,” explains one of the researchers, Bjarne Nes. “If fact, the participants who were in the top 25% for cardiorespiratory fitness had nearly half the risk compared to those in the lowest 25%.”
