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 In the study of nearly 6,000 older women, researchers found women in
the highest category of daily low intensity activity were 42 percent
less likely to experience a heart attack or die from heart disease
compared to those in the lowest category. And every extra hour of
light activity per day appeared to cut women's risk even further,
according to study results published in JAMA Network Open.
Current physical activity guidelines suggest 150 minutes a week of
moderate and vigorous physical activity, said the study's lead
author, Andrea LaCroix, director of the Women's Health Center of
Excellence at the University of California, San Diego. "That's been
a non-starter for many older women like the ones in the study whose
average age was 79," LaCroix said. "The bottom line in this study is
that everything we do, even lower intensity physical activities,
looks beneficial to the heart."
The current guidelines, LaCroix said, "were developed by people who
were not studying older women. Yet older women disproportionately
experience heart disease."
For the new study, LaCroix and her colleagues recruited 5,861 women,
ages 63 to 99, to wear a device called an accelerometer for one
week. The device kept track of when the women sat or reclined and
when they got up and moved around. It was also able to report on the
intensity of the women's activities.
On average, women in the most active group spent more than 5.6 hours
per day in light activity, while the least active group spent less
than 3.9 hours a day doing something other than sitting or lying
down.
During nearly four years of follow-up, there were 143 new heart
attacks and deaths from heart disease and 570 new cases of
cardiovascular disease (including not just heart attacks and deaths
but also heart failure, stroke, procedures to reopen clogged
arteries, and other heart and blood vessel problems).
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After accounting for factors such as age, race or ethnicity, BMI,
blood pressure, cholesterol levels, smoking status and alcohol
consumption, the researchers found that women who spent the most
hours in light activity were 42 percent less likely to have heart
attack or die from heart disease compared to those who spent the
least hours active, and they were 22 percent less likely to develop
new cardiovascular disease.
The study wasn't a controlled experiment and so it can't prove that
light activity directly reduces women's cardiovascular risk. One of
the study's strong points, however, is that women's activity levels
were measured by the devices, LaCroix said. Because women don't keep
track of the time they spend engaged in everyday activities such as
doing the laundry, when they fill out a questionnaire they tend to
underestimate how much they are moving around.
The new study is "very important," because shows that women can
lower their risk of heart disease simply by spending less time
sitting, said Dr. Elsa Giardina, director of the Center for Women's
Health at the NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving
Medical Center and a professor of medicine at the Columbia
University Irving Medical Center.
"It addresses a population that is really underrepresented in a lot
of studies and happens to be one of the fastest growing populations
in the U.S.," Giardina said. "This is also a population that often
doesn't get the drugs (to treat heart disease) or recommended for
physical therapy so they tend to have worse outcomes."
"The takeaway message is that low intensity physical activity can be
a really pleasant and inexpensive way to reduce cardiovascular
disease risk in older people," Giardina said.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2CslCiD JAMA Network Open, online March 15,
2019.
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