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Faster walking speed lowers CV hospitalization risk in hypertension, CVD
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Patients with hypertension and CVD who walk at a faster pace had lower rates of hospitalization vs. those walking at a slower pace, according to results published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology.
“Walking is the most popular type of exercise in adults. It is free, does not require special training and can be done almost anywhere,” Carlotta Merlo, MD, from the Centre for Biomedical Studies Applied to Sports at the University of Ferrara, Italy, said in a press release. “Even short, but regular, walks have substantial health benefits.”
Merlo and colleagues enrolled 1,078 patients (mean age, 64 years; 867 men) with hypertension who were studied for 3 years. Among the cohort, 85% had CHD and 15% had valve disease.
The researchers asked patients to walk 1 km on a treadmill at moderate speed and stratified them into three groups based on speed: slow (mean, 2.6 km per hour; n = 359), intermediate (mean, 3.9 km per hour; n = 362) and fast (mean, 5.1 km per hour; n = 357).
Throughout the duration of the 3-year study, Merlo and colleagues recorded the number of all-cause hospitalizations and length of stay.
According to the researchers, 51% of slow, 44% of intermediate and 31% of fast walkers had at least one hospitalization during follow-up.
Compared with the slow group, the fast group had reduced risk for hospitalization (HR = 0.63; 95% CI, 0.45-0.88), Merlo and colleagues wrote.
The researchers found a 19% reduction in the likelihood of hospitalization for each 1 km per hour increase in walking speed (HR = 0.81; 95% CI, 0.71-0.91).
During the study, length of stay was 23 days per person in the slow group, 14 days per person in the intermediate group and 9 days per person in the fast group.
“The faster the walking speed, the lower the risk of hospitalization and the shorter the length of hospital stay,” Merlo said in the release. “Since reduce walking speed is a marker of limited mobility, which has been linked to decreased physical activity, we assume that fast walkers in the study are also fast walkers in real life.” – by Dave Quaile
Disclosures: The authors report no relevant financial disclosures.
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