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Physically Fit Men Reduce Heart Attack Deaths by
Half
Study says dramatic reduction occurs regardless of
cholesterol level, age
Sept. 2, 2005 - Being physically fit can
dramatically reduce men’s deaths from heart disease – even when their
cholesterol rates are high, according to a Canadian study that included
men up to 79 years of age. Researchers, say, the reduction is as much as
50 percent, regardless of their cholesterol level.
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The primary aim of the study was to analyze the
effectiveness of last year’s modifications to the guidelines from the
U.S. National Cholesterol Education Program Adult Treatment Panel III (NCEP
ATP III) for lowering bad (LDL) cholesterol to predict death from
cardiovascular diseases, according to Dr. Peter Katzmarzyk, Queen’s
University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
“We wanted to find out if the new guidelines could
identify men at risk for cardiovascular disease,” says Dr. Katzmarzyk.
“We confirmed that the guidelines do accurately identify men at risk not
only of disease, but also at risk of cardiovascular death. We also
discovered that fitness is important across the board – at every level
of cholesterol.”
Results also suggest that within a given risk
category, physical fitness is associated with a greater than 50-per-cent
lower risk of mortality. In this study, physical fitness was four to
five, 30-minute segments of activity per week: equivalent to walking 130
to 138 minutes per week.
Researchers analyzed the cardiovascular risk
factors and cardio-respiratory fitness of 19,125 men ages 20 to 79, who
were treated at a preventive medicine clinic from 1979 -1995, prior to
the revised treatment guidelines.
Using the new ATP III classifications:
>> 58 per cent of the men would have met the
criteria for being “at or below LDL (bad) cholesterol goal”;
>> 18 per cent would have met the criteria for “therapeutic lifestyle
change” – meaning diet, physical activity and weight management could
lower LDL; and
>> 24 per cent would have met the criteria for “drug consideration”
for lowering LDL.
There were 179 deaths from cardiovascular disease
over more than 10 years of follow-up.
Overall, compared to men who met the acceptable LDL
level under the revised guidelines:
>> Men who met the criteria for therapeutic
lifestyle intervention had twice the risk of cardiovascular disease
death; and
>> Men eligible for aggressive cholesterol-lowering therapy had almost
seven-times the risk.
“Lowering the threshold for consideration of cholesterol-lowering drug
therapy for those at high risk will ultimately save lives and also have
important implications for the healthcare system,” says Dr. Katzmarzyk .
Other Queen’s members of the team, from the School
of Physical and Health Education, are Chris Ardern and Ian Janssen.
Researchers Timothy Church and Steven Blair from the Cooper Institute
Centres for Integrated Health Research in Dallas, Texas, are also on the
team.
The new study is to be published Tues. Sept. 6 in
Circulation:
Journal of the American Heart Association.
The research was partly funded by the U.S. National
Institutes of Health.
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