Walking fast reduces risk in patients with heart disease
Walking fast reduces the risk of hospitalization in patients with heart problems, according to research presented today at EuroPrevent 2018, a congress of the European Society of Cardiology, and published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology’European Journal of Preventive Cardiology. The three-year study was conducted on 1.078 hypertensive patients, of whom 85% also had coronary artery disease and 15% also had valvular disease. Patients were then asked to walk 1 km on a treadmill with a moderate’intensity.
Patients were classified as slow (2.6 km / hour), intermediate (3.9 km / hour) and fast (5.1 km / hour average). A total of 359 patients were slow walkers, 362 were intermediate walkers, and 357 were fast walkers. The researchers recorded the number of hospitalizations for all causes and the length of hospitalization over the following three years.
Participants were reported by the Emilia-Romagna Regional Health Registry, which collects data on hospitalization for all causes.
Walking is good for the heart
Study author Dr. Carlotta Merlo, a researcher at the University of Ferrara, said: “We have not ruled out causes of death because walking speed has significant public health consequences. It’s a precursor to disability, disease and loss of autonomy”.During the three-year period, 182 of the “slow” (51%) had at least one hospitalization, compared with 160 (44%) of the intermediate walkers and 110 (31%) of the fast walkers. The slow-moving, intermediate-moving and fast-moving groups spent a total of 4.186, 2.240 and 990 days in hospital over the three-year period.
The average length of hospital stay for each patient was 23, 14 and 9 days for slow, intermediate and fast walkers, respectively. Each km/hour of increased walking speed resulted in a 19% reduction in the probability of being hospitalized during the three-year period. Compared with slow walkers, fast walkers were 37 percent less likely to be hospitalized over three years.
Dr. Merlo: “Lower risk of hospitalization”
The faster the walking speed, the lower the risk of hospitalization and the shorter the duration
of the hospital stay, as reduced walking speed is an indicator of limited mobility,
That has been linked to decreased physical activity’which is. And he continued: “Walking is the kind of
most popular exercise in adults: it is free, requires no special training and can be
performed virtually everywhere. Although short, but regular, walks have significant health benefits. Our study shows that the benefits are even greater when the pace of walking is increased.
In short, for Giovanni D’Agata, president of “Sportello dei Diritti,” a piece of advice to be taken literally that requires only a bit of good will.