|
 Researchers gave about 650 men an exercise test in 1967 when they
were 50 years old. They asked participants to push themselves to the
limit and ranked results into three groups based on low, medium or
high endurance.
Each bump up in the endurance rankings was associated with a 21
percent lower risk of death during 45 years of follow-up, after
adjusting for factors like smoking, blood pressure and cholesterol
levels.
“Low fitness in middle age was associated with increased risk for
all-cause mortality for several decades,” lead study author Dr. Per
Ladenvall of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden said by email.
To assess physical fitness in middle age, researchers used exercise
tests and examined data on the maximum amount of oxygen
participants’ bodies could use. Generally, people with higher
fitness levels can use more oxygen than individuals who are out of
shape.
Researchers started the study by looking at data on 792 men from a
larger study designed to investigate risk factors for cardiovascular
disease and mortality. Of those, only 656 were able to complete a
maximum exercise test pushing themselves to the limit; the rest had
a health condition that made this type of test unsafe.
Because not all of the men who did the exercise tests also completed
an analysis of maximum oxygen use, researchers used results from a
subset of men to estimate aerobic capacity for the remaining
participants.
There were some key differences among the participants in each of
the three groups based on exercise abilities. Men in the “low”
aerobic capacity group had higher average blood pressure, were more
likely to smoke and tended to also be more sedentary than
participants in the “medium” and “high” capacity groups.
By the end of the study period, 313 men died of cardiovascular
diseases and 322 participants died from cancer or other causes,
researchers report in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology.
One shortcoming of the study is its relatively small size, which
makes it hard to draw conclusions about specific causes of death for
the participants, the authors note.
[to top of second column] |
It’s also possible that men in the study were more active generally
than men are today, said Dr. Venkatesh Murthy, a cardiovascular
medicine researcher at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor who
wasn’t involved in the study.
“The main limitations are that this is from a group of men born more
than 100 years ago in Sweden,” Murthy said by email. “Although it’s
very likely that the general principles hold today, there probably
wasn’t much ‘couch potato’ behavior in those days.”
Eating habits have also changed substantially over time, and this,
too, might make the results different if the same study was done
today, said Dr. Ravi Shah, a researcher at Massachusetts General
Hospital in Boston who wasn’t involved in the study.
Even so, the findings build on earlier research in both men and
women linking higher levels of physical fitness to a longer life,
Shah said by email.
“Exercise testing provides a comprehensive look at the entire body,
integrating the function of the heart, lungs, muscle, bone, and fat
tissue,” Shah said. “Studies that help us understand how these organ
systems interact are crucial to understanding how exercise and
fitness may benefit people.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2a8RSw6 European Journal of Preventive
Cardiology, online July 26, 2016.
[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2016 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
