Regular Physical Activity To Lower The Risk Of Death By Heart Attack

Regular physical activity can not only improve our overall fitness but it can also lower the chance of dying immediately from a heart attack, a new study suggests. The study, published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, showed that a higher level of physical activity was associated with a lower risk of instant and 28-day fatal heart attack, seemingly in a dose-response-like manner.

Patients who had engaged in moderate and high levels of leisure-time physical activity had a 33 percent and 45 percent lower risk of instant death compared to sedentary individuals. At 28 days these numbers were 36 percent and 28 percent, respectively.

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"Almost 18 percent of patients with a heart attack died within 28 days, substantiating the severity of this condition. We found an immediate survival benefit of prior physical activity in the setting of a heart attack, a benefit which seemed preserved at 28 days," said researcher Kim Wadt Hansen of Bispebjerg Hospital in Denmark.

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For the study, the team used data from 10 European observational cohorts including healthy participants with a baseline assessment of physical activity who had a heart attack during follow-up – a total of 28,140 individuals. Participants were categorized according to their weekly level of leisure-time physical activity as sedentary, low, moderate, or high.

The association between activity level and the risk of death due to a heart attack (instantly and within 28 days) was analyzed in each cohort separately and then the results were pooled. A total of 4,976 (17.7 percent) participants died within 28 days of their heart attack – of these, 3,101 (62.3 percent) died instantly. The guidelines recommend that healthy adults of all ages 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 thereof, the study suggested. (IANS)