If you’ve been looking for excuses to skip exercise, a predisposition to atrial fibrillation shouldn’t be one of them.
For years, the prevailing wisdom has been that exercise – at least vigorous endurance training – increases a person’s risk of atrial fibrillation, an irregular heart beat linked to the formation of blood clots that can potentially cause a stroke.
By extension, many people feared the same might be true even for leisurely physical activity.
But new research has determined that being inactive may be just as bad. Scientists recently found that light to moderate exercise appears to actually prevent this health condition from occurring in older adults.
In fact, after following more than 5,400 people for 12 years, they concluded that 26 percent of atrial fibrillation cases were the result of a lack of moderate exercise.
It’s still not recommended that out-of-shape seniors at above-average risk of atrial fibrillation go out and compete in the Ironman triathlon. But going for leisurely strolls or engaging in appropriate exercise is not a bad idea – if you have your doctor’s blessing.
In the study noted above, seniors – the very people at the greatest risk for atrial fibrillation – who engaged in moderate exercise had a 28 percent reduction in their risk of developing the condition compared with older adults who did not exercise at all. On the other hand, those who exercised too vigorously fared just as poorly as those who were averse to exercising. The seniors who walked 60 or more blocks per week had the best results.
In one sense, the findings weren’t entirely surprising. Two years ago, the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology noted that obesity is “an important risk factor” for the development of atrial fibrillation, and wrote that previous research raised “the intriguing possibility that weight reduction may decrease the risk” of developing this condition.
Indeed, the researchers behind the new study found that those who exercised modestly had lower body mass indexes than those who did not. Guess what? They also had lower blood pressure, a lower heart rate and better lipid levels—in addition to the lower risk of atrial fibrillation. Not a bad return on your investment in a little exercise. While your risk of atrial fibrillation has a genetic component, it is helpful to remember that by getting yourself moving, your choices can affect that risk as well.