Study shows poor cardiorespiratory fitness on its own is a red flag for heart attack
Poor cardiorespiratory fitness could increase your risk of a future heart attack, even if you have no symptoms of a lifestyle illness today, found a new study.
“We found a strong link between higher fitness levels and a lower risk of heart attack and angina pectoris over the nine years following the measurements that were taken,” said researcher Bjarne Nes, from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology’s (NTNU) Cardiac Exercise Research Group (CERG). These diseases signal that the coronary arteries in the heart are narrowed or completely blocked.
The study results have been published in the European Heart Journal.
“Even among people who seem to be healthy, the top 25 percent of the most fit individuals actually have only half as high a risk as the least fit 25 percent,” Nes added.
The test used maximum oxygen uptake to measure participant fitness. To measure maximum oxygen uptake accurately, participants were asked to breathe into a mask while running on a treadmill, where the speed increases or the incline gets steeper every minute
Between 2006 and 2008, CERG researchers measured the cardiorespiratory fitness of 4527 men and women who participated in the HUNT3 population-based health survey in Nord-Trøndelag. None of the subjects had any previous history of high blood pressure or any other heart disease and most were considered to be at low risk of cardiovascular disease for the next ten years.
Nevertheless, 147 of the participants experienced heart attacks or were diagnosed with angina pectoris by 2017.
The test used maximum oxygen uptake to measure participant fitness. To measure maximum oxygen uptake accurately, participants were asked to breathe into a mask while running on a treadmill, where the speed increases or the incline gets steeper every minute. The test ends when you can’t run anymore, or when measurements show that the oxygen uptake is no longer increasing even though the treadmill speed is.
The results showed that heart attack risk declined steadily as participant’s fitness increased after adjusting for factors like age and gender. The study suggests that for each increase of 3.5 fitness points, the risk of heart attack or angina decreases by 15 percent.
“Our results should encourage people to use training as preventive medicine. A few months of regular exercise that gets you out of breath can be an effective strategy for reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease,” said the study’s first author, Dr. Jon Magne Letnes, a doctoral candidate in CERG.
CERG has developed such a fitness calculator, which is currently recommended by US health authorities. More than six million people have found their fitness numbers with this fitness tool. The calculator is found at https://www.ntnu.edu/cerg/
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