NYMC Faculty Publications

Prevention of Heart Failure in Older Adults May Require Higher Levels of Physical Activity than Needed for Other Cardiovascular Events

Author Type(s)

Faculty

DOI

10.1016/j.ijcard.2012.12.053

Journal Title

International Journal of Cardiology

First Page

1905

Last Page

1909

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

10-3-2013

Department

Medicine

Keywords

Aged, Confidence Intervals, Exercise, Exercise Therapy, Female, Follow-Up Studies, Heart Failure, Humans, Incidence, Male, Motor Activity, Prognosis, Prospective Studies, Risk Assessment, Survival Rate, United States

Disciplines

Medicine and Health Sciences

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Little is known if the levels of physical activity required for the prevention of incident heart failure (HF) and other cardiovascular events vary in community-dwelling older adults.

METHODS: We studied 5503 Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS) participants, age ≥ 65 years, free of baseline HF. Weekly metabolic equivalent task-minutes (MET-minutes), estimated using baseline total leisure-time energy expenditure, were used to categorize participants into four physical activity groups: inactive (0 MET-minutes; n=489; reference), low (1-499; n=1458), medium (500-999; n=1086) and high (≥ 1000; n=2470).

RESULTS: Participants had a mean (± SD) age of 73 (± 6) years, 58% were women, and 15% African American. During 13 years of follow-up, centrally-adjudicated incident HF occurred in 26%, 23%, 20%, and 19% of participants with no, low, medium and high physical activity, respectively (trend p

CONCLUSION: In community-dwelling older adults, high level of physical activity was associated with lower risk of incident HF, but all levels of physical activity were associated with lower risk of incident AMI, stroke, and cardiovascular mortality.

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