Not every February post will be about cardiovascular health, I'm sure. But this is my soapbox, after all...
A blurb in this month's Shape magazine led me back to the Journal of the American Medical Association to check out the report "Ability of Exercise Testing to Predict Cardiovascular and All-Cause Death in Asymptomatic Women." Johns Hopkins, where the study was conducted, also published a summary: Exercise Measures Identify Heart Disease in Seemingly Healthy Women.
What Shape picked up on, and what most interested me:
...women who performed below average in peak exercise capacity and recovery rate were 3.5 times more likely to die of heart disease than women who were above average. Among women with seemingly low risk for heart disease based on traditional criteria, those who scored below average on these measures were nearly 13 times more likely to die of heart disease than those who performed better on the tests.
So:
Samia Mora, lead study author and a senior clinical fellow in Hopkins' Division of Cardiology, said, "Our study suggests that women may benefit from higher fitness levels, independent of changes in weight, blood pressure or cholesterol levels. Exercise capacity might be improved by 15 to 30 percent with moderate regular physical activity."
WebMD's coverage of the Hopkins study adds the practical advice for interested women who aren't scheduled for a stress test in the near future:
...Mora tells WebMD that you can get a rough idea of your recovery level by doing a little math during and immediately following an intense workout.Posted by Nic at February 2, 2004 12:35 PM | TrackBack"While you exercise at the highest level possible, check your heart rate by counting the beats for 15 seconds and then multiplying by four," she says. "Then, when you stop exercising completely, sit in a chair for two minutes and then count your heart rate again. Subtract the two numbers."
In her study, when the initial difference between those two numbers was 55 or more, women were less likely to die of heart disease decades later than when the difference was less than 55 beats at that two-minute measurement.