Getting fit in middle age can reduce heart failure risk

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-05/aha-gfi051013.php

Public release date: 15-May-2013
Contact: Cathy Lewis
American Heart Association
Getting fit in middle age can reduce heart failure risk
American Heart Association meeting report -- Abstract 156

Middle aged and out of shape? It's not too late to get fit — and reduce your risk for heart failure, according to research presented at the American Heart Association's Quality of Care and Outcomes Research Scientific Sessions 2013.

Researchers ranked fitness levels of 9,050 men and women (average age 48) who took two fitness tests — eight years apart — during mid-life. After 18 years of follow-up, they matched the fitness information to Medicare claims for heart failure hospitalizations.

"People who weren't fit at the start of the study were at higher risk for heart failure after age 65," said Ambarish Pandey, M.D., lead author of the study and an internal medicine resident at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. "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."

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