Originally published October 3 2005
Cardiovascular disease can be avoided with long-term physical fitness
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
According to the Journal of the American Heart Association, low cholesterol is less important in the prevention of heart disease than a consistent exercise regimen and overall physical fitness.
His new study to be published Tues.
Sept. 6 by Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association shows that, regardless of their cholesterol level, men can cut by half their risk of dying from cardiovascular disease if they are physically fit.
Other Queen's members of the team, from the School of Physical and Health Education, are Chris Ardern and Ian Janssen.
Researchers Timothy Church and Steven Blair from the Cooper Institute Centres for Integrated Health Research in Dallas, Texas, are also on the team.
The primary aim of the study was to analyze the effectiveness of last year's modifications to the guidelines from the U.S. National Cholesterol Education Program Adult Treatment Panel III (NCEP ATP III) for lowering bad (LDL) cholesterol to predict death from cardiovascular diseases.
"We wanted to find out if the new guidelines could identify men at risk for cardiovascular disease," says Dr. Katzmarzyk.
"We confirmed that the guidelines do accurately identify men at risk not only of disease, but also at risk of cardiovascular death.
We also discovered that fitness is important across the board -- at every level of cholesterol."
Results also suggest that within a given risk category, physical fitness is associated with a greater than 50-per-cent lower risk of mortality.
In this study, physical fitness was four to five, 30-minute segments of activity per week: equivalent to walking 130 to 138 minutes per week.
There were 179 deaths from cardiovascular disease over more than 10 years of follow-up.
� Men eligible for aggressive cholesterol-lowering therapy had almost seven-times the risk.
"Lowering the threshold for consideration of cholesterol-lowering drug therapy for those at high risk will ultimately save lives and also have important implications for the healthcare system," says Dr. Katzmarzyk.
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