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Medical Video: 5 Common Signs of Heart Disease
People who have survived a heart attack are encouraged to exercise regularly to improve heart health, but recent research has found a negative side.
"More is not always better," said study researcher Paul Williams, staff scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif.
Williams tracked nearly 2,400 people who survived a heart attack from a long-term study of runners and pedestrians for about 10 years. In general, exercise reduces the risk of death from a heart attack more than 65%, he said.
However, running more than 48 km a week or running more than 74 km per week has the opposite effect, more than 2 times the risk of a heart attack, as revealed in the study.
Throughout the decade of the study, 526 people died, almost ¾ due to heart attacks and heart disease.
Because the study was limited to people who survived a heart attack, Williams was unable to say whether the findings would apply to healthy adults who exercise intensively.
People who survived a heart attack who exercised excessively included little, with only 6% running beyond 48 km or walking 74 km a week, in the study.
For most participants, increasing exercise but to a certain extent reduced the risk of drastic death from a heart attack, found by Williams.
Experts say the results are not surprising.
Studies show, "You don't have to exercise much to get many benefits," from a health standpoint, Dr. Carl Lavie, medical director of cardiac rehabilitation and preventive cardiology at the John Ochsner Heart and Vascular Institute, New Orleans.
According to the Physical Activity Guide for Americans, 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise a week or 75 minutes of high intensity exercise are recommended.
Williams is uncertain why people who exercise at the highest level are at risk of dying from a heart attack or whether the results will apply to activities other than walking or running.
The study found that the benefits of walking were equivalent to running. However, it runs two times longer than running to burn calories in the same amount. The study was published online on August 12 in Mayo Clinic Proceedings.
In the same issue, Spanish researchers reviewed the findings of 10 published studies, looking at the effects of training elite athletes on longevity.
The study involved more than 42,000 athletes, mostly men, who had participated in football, baseball, athletics and cycling. Elite athletes live longer than the general population, according to the study. This finding states that the effects of exercise on health, especially to reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer, are not always limited to moderate doses.
The findings do not have to be contrary to other studies, said Lavie, the author of an additional opinion article in the study.
"At least it is a relief to know that athletic activity, high competition, high level athletics does not seem to be related to the decline in the chances of survival, but actually with the benefits of survival," he said.
In addition, Lavie said that sports carried out by athletes are often not as extreme as marathon runners.
Same as suggested by a heart doctor so far, said Dr. James O’Keefe, author of additional opinion articles and cardiologists at the Mid-America St. Heart Institute Luke in Kansas City, Mo. "Sports is the best thing you can do for your health," he said, if done not excessively.
"It's not good to just sit down, but you can do it excessively," he said.
According to Keefe, if you exercise especially for health benefits, 2.5-5 hours of heavy exercise a week is a lot. Keefe and colleagues also stated that 1 or 2 days of rest every week might also work.
