Exercise More Than 150 Minutes Weekly to Lower Risk for Heart Failure

People who exercise enjoy many health benefits including a lower risk for heart failure. But for those who want to significantly lower that risk, they will need to increase their physical activity beyond regular health guidelines.

Currently, federal health guidelines recommend at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity every week. That may change since new research shows that people who are much more active have better success at lowering their risk of heart failure.

In fact, doubling or quadrupling the minimum suggested levels of physical activity may lower the risk of heart failure by as much as 35 percent, according to research published in the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation.

“Walking 30 minutes a day as recommending in the U.S. physical activity guidelines, may not be good enough – significantly more physical activity may be necessary to reduce the risk of heart failure,” said Jarett D. Berry, M.D., senior author of the study and an associate professor of internal medicine and clinical sciences at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas.

Heart failure affects millions of people in the United States.

More than 5 million people in the United States have heart failure – when the heart muscle is so weak it cannot pump enough blood into the aorta. Roughly half of the people who develop heart failure die within five years of being dianosed, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Heart failure happens when the heart is not able to supply adequate amounts of blood to the rest of the body and is characterized by shortness of breast and a reduced ability to exercise, a news release from the AHA states.

“If you look at the general population,” Berry said, “we’ve had tremendous success in reducing coronary heart disease over the last 30 years. But heart failure rates have not declined enough. The findings from the present study suggest that higher levels of physical activity may help combat this growing burden of heart failure.”

After analyzing data from 12 studies conducted in the U.S. and Europe, researchers were able to determine that people who exercised 150 minutes weekly only had a modest reduction in heart failure risk. However, those who reported twice that amount of activity enjoyed a 20 percent reduction in heart failure risk. Putting four times the recommended amount of time into exercise gave people a 35 percent reduction.

“Future physical activity guidelines should take these findings into consideration, and potentially provide stronger recommendations regarding the value of higher amounts of physical activity for the prevention of heart failure,” said Ambarish Pandey, M.D., lead author of the study and a cardiology fellow at University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas.

Source: American Heart Association news release, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics

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