20 minutes of moderate daily exercise reduces risk of heart failure
Researchers followed 33,012 men from the Cohort of Swedish Men from 1998 until 2012 or first event of heart failure to determine if physical activity was associated with heart failure risk.
Twenty minutes of walking and bicycling daily was associated with a lower risk of future heart failure compared to lower and higher levels of activity in a study of Swedish men, which also found that recent active behavior may be more important than past physical activity.
Researchers followed 33,012 men from the Cohort of Swedish Men from 1998 until 2012 or first event of heart failure to determine if physical activity was associated with heart failure risk. The men answered a questionnaire about their level of activity at work and home and about types of exercise in the past year, at an average age of 60, and looking retrospectively at age 30. Results were published online by the Journal of the American College of Cardiology: Heart Failure.
During a mean follow-up of 13 years, there were 3,609 heart failure events, including 3,190 first events of heart failure hospitalizations and 419 heart failure deaths. Overall, men who had the lowest (38 metabolic equivalent hours/day) and highest (57 metabolic equivalent hours/day) levels of physical activity had a higher risk of heart failure than men with a median level.
When the different types of physical activity were analyzed, walking or bicycling for 20 minutes per day was associated with the largest risk reduction, a 21% lower risk of heart failure (hazard ratio, 0.79; 95% CI, 0.72 to 0.87) and accounted for the largest difference in heart failure-free survival, the authors wrote. This corresponded to the median age at heart failure being 8 months older for those who had actively walked or biked daily. Exercising more than 1 hour per week was associated with risk reduction (hazard ratio, 0.86; 95% CI, 0.79 to 0.94) in a multivariable-adjusted model. Work occupation, household work, and physical inactivity were not significantly associated with development of heart failure.
While the study suggests both low and high levels of physical activity could increase the risk of heart failure in men compared to more moderate levels, study authors cautioned that the link between physical activity and heart disease is not fully understood. “Public awareness of specific types of PA [physical activity] as well as sufficient amount and duration of PA required for HF [heart failure] protection could potentially reduce the HF burden in society,” they wrote.
Authors of an accompanying editorial noted that medicine still knows relatively little about how variations in physical activity and exercise “dose” might impact disease onset. “… [S]imilar to prior observational studies reporting on the association between physical activity and disease occurrence, [the current study] reinforces the main ‘take-home’ message that a moderate level of total physical activity is an important behavioral strategy that assists with not only the treatment of HF but its prevention as well. A recommendation that should ring true for the vast majority of the patients we counsel.”