Abstract

Higher fitness and Its Correlation with Reduced Death after First Heart Attack

Author(s): Tabitha davis

Physical activity is an important part of maintaining excellent heart health. It's one of the most efficient ways to strengthen your heart muscle, maintain a healthy weight, and prevent artery damage caused by excessive cholesterol, high blood sugar, or high blood pressure, which can lead to heart attack or stroke. Higher levels of physical fitness may not only reduce the risk of heart attacks and death from all causes, but may also improve the chances of surviving after a first attack, according to Johns Hopkins and Henry Ford Health System researchers. Some scientist used the patients' achieved metabolic equivalent score — MET, for short — as a quick, if not perfect, measure of energy consumption at rest and during physical activity in the new study, which looked at medical records of people who had taken a treadmill stress test before their first heart attack. The higher the MET score, the more physically fit the subjects were thought to be. The researchers discovered that the 634 patients who received a MET score of 10 or above had roughly 40% fewer deaths following their first heart attack than the rest of the patients. One-third of the 754 patients with a MET score of 6 or less died within a year of their initial heart attack, according to the researchers. Overall, each whole-number rise in MET score after a first heart attack resulted with an 8% reduction in death risk.