Getting Fit in Middle Age Lowers Risk of Heart Failure

It's never too late to get physically fit, and being over 40 doesn't have to stop you. A latest study suggests that middle-aged people who are obese or overweight can lower their risk of heart failure by getting into shape and being physically fit.

The study was presented at the American Heart Association's Quality of Care and Outcomes Research Scientific Sessions 2013.

To prove their finding, researchers ranked the fitness levels of 9,050 participants that consisted of both men and women belonging to an average age of 48. The participants took part in two fitness tests, which were held eight years apart during mid-life. The fitness information was matched after a follow-up of 18 years and the information was matched to that of Medicare claims for heart failure hospitalization.

"People who weren't fit at the start of the study were at higher risk for heart failure after age 65," Ambarish Pandey, M.D., lead author of the study, said in a press statement. "However, those who improved their fitness reduced their heart failure risk, compared to those who continued to have a low fitness level eight years later," Pandey, an internal medicine resident at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, continued to say.

To check how people perform on a treadmill test, the researchers used metabolic equivalents (METs). For each MET improvement in fitness, the participant's risk of heart failure lowered by 20 percent.

Data according to the American Heart Association suggests that more than 5.1 million Americans live with heart failure, and by 2030 the occurrence of heart failure will shoot up by 25 percent, based on the 2013 estimates.

The 'takeaway' from this study is clear: one of the good heart failure prevention strategies is to improve fitness, as well as to control blood pressure, and improve diet and lifestyle. Implementing this in mid-life drops the risk of heart failure in the future.