Friday, October 20, 2006
Exercise at a young age decreases risk of heart disease later in life: study - Health
Are you in your 20-something years and find yourself avoiding the treadmill in your home? Do you hide it with those unhung pieces of clothing?
Do you take the longer route to your house just to bypass the neighborhood gym you once belonged to? Do you tell yourself you're going to rejoin? Well, you might want to rethink your exercise routine now to escape health problems in the future.
People who stay in shape in their 20s by leading an active lifestyle are more likely to decrease their high risk of developing high blood pressure, diabetes and other heart attack risk factors by their 30s and 40s, according to a study in which people were given treadmill tests for their fitness.
The lesson: "People can't wait until they are middle age to try to protect themselves," said lead author Mercedes Carnethon, an assistant professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago.
The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), involved about 4,400 men and women who were given a treadmill test when they were aged 18 to 30. Most of them were followed for 15 years after that.
Those who did not do well on the treadmill test faced double the risk of developing high blood pressure, diabetes or a condition called metabolic syndrome when compared with highly fit participants.
Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of symptoms that includes high blood sugar, poor cholesterol levels, elevated blood pressure and a fat belly.
Some of the participants underwent a second treadmill test, seven years after the first one. Those who became more fit during those intervening years reduced their risk of diabetes and metabolic syndrome by 50 percent.
The findings "confirm what common sense has always told us-lack of fitness in youth is not a good thing for later life," said Dr. Teri Manolio, director of epidemiology at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, which funded the research. "It doesn't take that long for risk factors to develop and disease to develop."
Fitness levels were determined by how long participants could walk on a treadmill without becoming fatigued and short of breath.
About 60 percent of the female test subjects and 50 percent of the male subjects had low or moderate fitness levels. They were said to be twice as likely to develop heart-disease factors as those who were highly fit.
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
