Valentine’s Day seems to be the most recognized day for this month, but this whole month is about heart health. February 5th was wear red for women’s heart health and stroke prevention and awareness. Do you ever wonder how many times a heart beats in a lifetime? It expands and contracts 2.5 billion times. It is worth keeping, and keeping it healthy! More than $1 billion of chocolate is purchased for Valentine’s Day in the U.S. alone.
According to the American Heart Association, about 550,000 people in the U.S. have a first-time heart attack each year. Researchers at Johns Hopkins and the Henry Ford Health System report evidence that higher levels of physical fitness may not only reduce risk of heart attacks and death from all causes, but also possibly improve the chances of survival after a first attack. The findings, based on medical records data gathered from more than 2,000 men and women, are described in the online Feb. 1, 2016 edition on Mayo Clinic Proceedings.
For the new study, Michael Blaha, M.D., M.P.H. and his colleagues focused on medical records of individuals who had taken a treadmill stress test before their first heart attack and used the patient’s achieved metabolic equivalent score otherwise known as MET. MET measures energy by oxygen consumption metabolic equivalents (METs) and kilocalories. Oxygen consumption refers to the rate at which oxygen is consumed by the body. The higher the MET score, the more physically fit the participants were considered to be.
MET scores range from 1 to 12, where 1 is considered the equivalent of sitting on the couch, 3 aligns with walking, 7 with jogging, 10 with jumping rope and 12 with sprinting. The researchers found that overall, the 634 people achieving MET scores of 10 or higher had about 40 percent fewer deaths after a first heart attacks as compared to the rest of the patients. They also observed that one-third of the 754 patients with a MET score of 6 or less died within a year of their first heart attack. Overall, their results showed an 8 percent reduction in death risk for each whole-number increase in MET score after a first heart attack.
The investigators noted that their study design has limitations, including the fact that they could not assess whether improving fitness levels as measured by MET scores can decrease the risk of death from a heart attack. Dr. Blaha says, they didn’t determine if people who are fitter have less damaging heart attacks, or if they have same-sized heart attacks as those who are unfit but survive them better. Decades of research show that cardiovascular fitness does increase blood flow to the heart and may aid in healing, which is a likely contributing factor to lower mortality rates.
In a 2013 study, Blaha and his colleagues at Henry Ford Hospital linked physical fitness to improved overall survival and heart attack prevention in people with already established coronary artery disease, including prior heart attack.
