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Moderate physical activity linked to reduced CHD risk in young women
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At least 150 minutes of moderate physical activity per week can lower CHD risk by 25% in young women, researchers reported in Circulation.
According to the study background, CHD mortality rates have fallen for older adults, but in women aged 25 to 54 years there has been little improvement.
“Our reason for carrying out this study was primarily to focus on younger women,” Andrea Chomistek, ScD, assistant professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the Indiana University School of Public Health in Bloomington, said in a press release. “We wanted to identify steps that young women could take to lower their incidence of [CHD].”
Chomistek and colleagues used data from the Nurses’ Health Study II to analyze the relationship between volume of total leisure-time physical activity (metabolic equivalent of task [MET]-hours per week) and CHD in young women.
Moderate exercise
In the cohort, 116,430 registered nurses aged 25 to 42 years were given leisure-time physical activity assessments in 1991, 1997, 2001, 2005 and 2009; after exclusion of women who did not complete the baseline questionnaire, could not walk at baseline or had CVD, cancer or diabetes before 1991, the cohort totaled 97,230 women. The primary endpoint was incident CHD, including nonfatal MI and fatal CHD.
During 20 years of follow-up, 544 women (254 younger than 50 years) developed incident CHD. The women who reported the most leisure-time physical activity ( 30 MET-hours per week) had a lower risk for CHD compared with women with the least amount of activity (< 1 MET-hour per week; adjusted HR = 0.75; 95% CI, 0.57-0.99).
According to the researchers, moderate and vigorous physical activity were associated with a decrease in CHD risk regardless of BMI category (P for interaction = .7), and frequency did not matter as along as at least 150 minutes per week of physical activity was accumulated.
Women with BMI less than 25 kg/m2 and at least 30 MET-hours per week of physical activity had a nearly 50% reduced risk for CHD compared with women with BMI at least 30 kg/m2 and less than 1 MET-hours per week of physical activity (adjusted HR = 0.52; 95% CI, 0.35-0.78), Chomistek and colleagues wrote.
“Most women can improve their heart health significantly by incorporating some moderate or vigorous physical activity into their regular routine,” Chomistek said in the release. “Physical activity appears to be beneficial across the lifespan, regardless of body weight. It’s important to remember that any amount of activity is better than none.”
Preventive strategy
In a related editorial, Erin D. Michos, MD, MHS, and Michael J. Blaha, MD, MPH, both with the Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Heart Disease and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, wrote that the findings help improve understanding of the benefits of physical activity in young women, but there were some limitations to the study, including that CHD outcomes instead of atherosclerotic CVD outcomes were measured and that there were no data on measured fitness.
Michael J. Blaha
“Young women less than 55 years may be a neglected demographic group because of their low perceived [atherosclerotic CVD] risk. However, this group is particularly important because encouraging health in young women may also lead to indirect health effects on spouses and children,” Michos and Blaha wrote. “Encouraging [physical activity] in young women should be a centerpiece of our preventive strategy, and we speculate that future use of mobile health technology as part of a family-centric approach to [physical activity] might help prompt lasting lifestyle changes.” – by Tracey Romero
Disclosure: The researchers, Blaha and Michos report no relevant financial disclosures.
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