Cardiovascular Disease Patients Can Live Longer By Exercising Regularly, Study Finds

People who are living with cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) can extent their life expectancy by being physically active, a study stated. According to the study, a patient with CVD can benefit much more than a healthy person by exercising regularly.

CVD is the major cause of death worldwide as the number of people dying due to this chronic illness is much more than any other causes. According to World Health Organisation (WHO), nearly 31 percent or 18 million people died due to this disease in 2016.

Previous studies have suggested different ways to prevent CVD and stay healthy. Some of them are to focus on a plant-based diet and to be physically active. A study even suggested that brushing teeth with a plaque reducing toothpaste can lower the risk of heart disease and stroke.

However, this is the first time a study is focusing on the health benefits of exercising on a person with CVD. The research that was published in the European Heart Journal on Sunday stated that the mortality rate in CVD patients can be reduced by encouraging them to be physically active.

The research that was also presented at the World Congress of Cardiology in Paris together with the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) stated that CVD patients can benefit more from exercising than a healthy adult.

For the study, the research team analyzed the data of 441,798 adults aged above 40. All the information for the study was collected from the Korean National Health Insurance Services Health Screening Cohort. The participants in the study had participated in a health screening program from 2009 to 2015 and they had completed a survey on their physical activity levels.

While 53.5 percent of the participants were men, a total of 310,240 of them did not have cardiovascular disease and 131,558 participants were living with it, the study noted.

The research team observed the participants for nearly six years and they analyzed the data on the number of deaths during this period. They also tried to find out the various causes of death from the Korean National Death Index.

At the end of the analysis, the research team found out that the physically active people had a reduced risk of dying than the ones who were not involved in regular exercises. They also witnessed a greater reduction in mortality rates in the participants who were physically very active.

“The main new finding of this study is that people with cardiovascular disease benefit from a physically active lifestyle to a greater extent than healthy people without cardiovascular disease,” lead researcher Dr. Sang-Woo Jeong, who is a cardiologist at the Seoul National University, said in a statement.

The researcher further said, half of the participants in the study did not perform “the recommended level of leisure-time physical activity and a quarter had a totally sedentary lifestyle”.

According to him, people with CVD were not physically very active compared to those who did not have this illness. “But the more exercise people did, the lower their risk of death during the six years of follow-up,” Jeong added.

Meanwhile, co-author of the study Dr. Si-Hyuck Kang said there could “several plausible explanations” why the people with CVDs benefited more from exercising than a healthy adult.

“First, sedentary lifestyle is a well-known risk factor for CVD. Patients with CVD may have had sedentary lifestyles, and thus changing their lifestyle to become more physically active may be more beneficial. Secondly, a number of previous studies have shown that physical activity helps control cardiovascular risk factors such as blood pressure, cholesterol and blood glucose. The benefit of physical activity in secondary prevention may come by better controlling such risk factors. Lastly, patients with CVD usually have higher levels of systemic inflammation than those without CVD, and there is evidence that physical activity lowers systemic inflammatory levels,” he continued.

The researcher also said it is very important to be physically active for leading a healthy life. According to him, doctors should encourage their patients to be physically active and emphasize the importance of a physically active lifestyle for patients with cardiovascular disease.

“People who are physically active sleep better, feel better and function better. We would like to stress that physical activity is an economic way to live longer, healthier and happier, with little adverse effects,” Kang, who is also a cardiologist at Seoul National University, added.

The researcher even suggested different ways to be physically active. “The 2016 ESC guideline for primary prevention recommends healthy adults of all ages should perform at least 150 minutes a week of moderate intensity or 75 minutes a week of vigorous intensity aerobic physical activity, or an equivalent combination,” he said.

“One way you can achieve 500 MET-minutes a week is to do brisk walking for 30 minutes, five times a week. If you are very busy and have no time to work out during weekdays, the other way to achieve approximately 500 MET-minutes a week is to do vigorous physical activity such as climbing hills with no loads for 75 minutes once a week. You can achieve 1500 MET-minutes a week by doing brisk walking for 30 minutes five times a week plus climbing hills for 2.5 hours once a week,” Kang explained.