Maintaining Fitness Levels Will Reduce The Risk of Death
According to a study published in the December 2011 issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, maintaining fitness levels Can Reduce Risk of Death Even if your Body Weight Increases.
Maintaining Fitness Levels
“This is good news for people who are physically active but can’t seem to lose weight,” says Duck-chul Lee, PhD, the study’s lead researcher and physical activity epidemiologist in the Department of Exercise Science at the University of South Carolina Arnold School of Public Health, Columbia, SC. “You can worry less about your weight as long as you continue to maintain or increase your fitness levels.”
The researchers found that maintaining or improving fitness was associated with a lower death risk even after controlling for BMI change. Furthermore, the researchers discovered that every unit of increased fitness, measured as metabolic equivalent of task (MET), over 6 years was associated with a 19% lower risk of heart disease and stroke-related deaths and a 15% lower risk of death from any cause. Becoming less fit was linked to a higher death risk, regardless of BMI changes, they found.
According to the researchers, other factors that could affect outcomes were accounted for, including BMI change, age, family history of heart disease, beginning fitness level, changes in lifestyle factors such as smoking and physical activity, and medical conditions such as high blood pressure or diabetes.
A possible explanation for these results, according to the study, is that about 90% of the men were either normal weight or overweight at the beginning of the study. Lee says that changes in BMI among obese people might have a significant effect on death risks so it is unclear whether these results would apply to them. Lee adds that it is difficult to know whether the results apply to other racial and socioeconomic groups, although he says women would likely have similar results as the men.
Source: Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association
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