Exercise benefits people with heart disease more than others

Regular exercise benefits heart disease patients more than healthy people, according to a new study.

It found that while stepping up physical activity reduced the risk of death for people with and without heart disease, those with heart disease had greatest benefit. The more they exercised, the more their risk dropped.

The study included nearly 442,000 people in South Korea who were followed for six years. They were older than 40 (average age: 60), and about one-third had heart disease. "We found that approximately half of the people in the study did not reach the recommended level of leisure-time physical activity, and a quarter had a totally sedentary lifestyle. People with cardiovascular disease had lower levels of physical activity than those without, but the more exercise people did, the lower their risk of death during the six years of follow-up," said study leader Dr. Sang-Woo Jeong, a cardiologist at Seoul National University in South Korea.

By the end of the follow-up period, researchers found that for every 500 MET-minutes a week of physical activity they logged, the risk of death dropped 14 percent in heart disease patients and by 7 percent in others.

MET-minutes/week (metabolic equivalent task minutes per week) is a measure of physical activity. And 500 MET-minutes/week represents the recommendation for healthy adults of all ages to get at least 150 minutes a week of moderate or 75 minutes a week of vigorous physical activity, or an equivalent combination.

Among people without heart disease, those who were inactive had a 27 percent higher risk of death than those with the most physical activity (1,500 MET-minutes/week or more, or the equivalent of brisk walking for 30 minutes five times a week plus climbing hills for 2.5 hours a week). Those who did up to 499 MET minutes/week of exercise had an 8 percent higher risk of death than those with the highest amounts of physical activity.

Among heart disease patients, the greatest reduction in death risk was seen in those who did up to 499 MET-minutes/week, but the risk continued to fall for those who did more.

Compared to people without heart disease who did the most exercise, the risk of death was 87 percent higher among heart disease patients who did not exercise; 45 percent higher among heart disease patients who did up to 499 MET-minutes/week; and 14 percent higher among heart disease patients who did 1,000 MET-minutes/week or more.

The study was presented Sunday at the annual meeting of the European Society of Cardiology in Paris, and published the same day in the European Heart Journal.

"The main new finding of this study is that people with cardiovascular disease benefit from a physically active lifestyle to a greater extent than healthy people without cardiovascular disease," Jeong said in a meeting news release.

More information

The U.S. National Library of Medicine has more on heart disease patients and exercise.