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Exercising
for Fun Better for the Heart
Engaging in exercise in your leisure hours can decrease
your risk of a heart attack by as much as 60 percent, a
German study has found.
If your exercise comes in the form of physical strain at
work, however, the opposite is true -- your risk of heart
disease goes up.
These are among the findings of a study at the University
of Ulm Medical Center in Germany, that studied 781 middle-aged
men and women, 312 of whom had heart disease.
"The study provides additional evidence that leisure
time physical activity (LTPA), but not work-related physical
strain (WRPS) is associated with a decreased risk of coronary
heart disease," the authors write.
The findings appear in the May 26 issue of the Archives
of Internal Medicine.
By asking participants to fill out questionnaires about
their physical activity during the summer and winter, both
at work and at leisure, and taking blood samples, the researchers
found nonwork-related physical activity was associated with
a lower risk for heart disease.
Also significant was that those who reported more leisure
time activity had lower levels of various biomarkers in
the blood that are involved in the inflammatory response,
which is thought to be involved in the buildup of plaque
in the blood vessels.
"This study was well done for the completeness of the
inflammatory markers. The authors looked very carefully
at more markers," says Dr. Richard Stein, a spokesman
for the American Heart Association and chief of cardiology
at Brooklyn Hospital Center.
Stein says this is important because these inflammatory
markers -- such as C-reactive protein (CRP) and interleukin
6 (IL-6) -- could be increasingly important in determining
the causes for heart attacks.
"Coronary events are not due to how much coronary disease
you have, but to the fracturing of the plaque that blocks
the heart vessel," he says, and while you can't say
now that having high levels of inflammatory markers can
predict coronary events, research is suggesting the likelihood
of these events are associated with these markers.
In the study, there was a clear relationship between leisure
time physical activity and a decrease in risk of heart disease,
with the benefits accruing dramatically as the amount of
exercise increased. Those who exercised for an hour or less
a week reduced their heart disease risk by 15 percent compared
to those who did no leisure time exercise.
People who exercised between one and two hours a week had
a 40 percent reduction in heart disease risk, and those
who exercised for more than two hours weekly reduced their
risk for heart disease by 61 percent.
"The single, most proactive thing you can do for yourself
to reduce the risk for heart disease is to exercise regularly
three or more times a week," Stein says.
Conversely, study participants who reported work-related
physical strain (WRPS) had a much higher risk of heart disease,
from a doubling of the risk for those who reported light
WRPS to more that four times the risk for those who had
heavy WRPS.
One reason for this difference, the authors suggest, could
be that work-related physical activity is probably long-lasting
and static, while leisure time activity is mainly short-lasting
and dynamic in nature. But, they add, it also may be due
to other, unknown risks.
Stein says that previous studies report the same discrepancy
between different types of exercise but that the cause for
the differences is unknown.
"It may be a mind-body connection, but it's not clear,"
he says.
An article explaining the biomarker C-reactive protein
(CRP) can be found at the National
Library of Medicine.
Article Source: HealthDay
Article Author: Janice Billingsley
Net Reference 101
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