Exercise and Heart Disease
According to the World Health Organisation physical inactivity causes 2 million deaths worldwide each year, and is a major risk factor in many dread diseases. You can see a warning symbol further down this article, but maybe there should also be one right here, warning of the dangers of inactivity, because a quarter of all deaths each year are linked to sedentary living.
In a recent British fitness survey of 3000 people, more than half of the people who were questioned reported spending most of their working day sitting down and inactive. Another survey – the National Travel Survey showed that the average distance walked per year year fell from 255 miles in 1975 to just 186 miles by the year 2000. This is largely due to the way in which modern living has almost engineered physical activity out of our daily lives.
Why is exercise and physical activity good for heart health?
In a nutshell, exercise can help to prevent heart disease, and reduce the heart attack statistics. Exercise can also lower blood pressure and other risk factors for coronary heart disease. Exercise is also beneficial for recovering heart patients.
Combined with a good heart diet, regular physical activity can also be effective in helping to prevent a range of other diseases and conditions, including :-
- stroke
- bowel cancer
- breast cancer
- osteoporosis
- obesity
There are also supplementary benefits associated with increased levels of fitness and physical activity – most people report feeling less stressed by the daily pressures of life, and overall better well-being. Regular exercise is also believed to ease the symptoms of anxiety, and mild depression.
Getting started with exercise
The good news is that it is never too late to start doing some extra physical activity to improve your health, no matter how old or unfit you currently are.
By reading this article, you are probably already realising the potential benefits and are serious about improving your risk factors for heart disease.
However, you must see a doctor if your have not been regularly exercising over the years, to ensure that your body is capable of withstanding the additional heart exercise. This also applies if you have a concern about an existing medical condition.
How much exercise does it take to tackle heart disease causes?
According to the British Heart Foundation the minimum recommended ‘dose’ of exercise required to gain benefits to your health is 30 minutes per day, and at least five days per week. It is not necessary to do this in one contiguous 30 minute block, but may be spread out across the day and with different activities contributing to the daily total. If you manage to achieve 30 minutes per day, you should then try to increase the amount to 40-60 minutes on most days if possible, especially if you are also involved in a weight loss program.
What type of exercise should I do?
The main reason for exercising is to increase the normal heart rate, and so virtually any activity that makes your heart beat faster is probably acceptable. 
You should be able to tell as your heart rate increases, as this will make you feel warmer, increase your breathing and possibly make you feel out of breath. So all of the following activities (and many more not listed here) are recommended :-
- cycling
- swimming
- brisk walking
- jogging
- dancing
- skipping
By the end of the activity you should feel the glow of the increased blood circulation around your body, and also feel a mild sweat from the exertion.
Regular Activities can also substitute for exercise
There are many daily jobs and chores which have been automated or replaced by modern machinery and living. It is possible to re-engineer just a small part of your normal routine to pay big health dividends. You can even use normal household activities to good effect. For example, fairly heavy housework, gardening, or washing the car by hand can all increase your breathing and metabolism, and count towards your 30 minutes of ‘sweat time’ per day. You could also consider taking a brisk walk to work, or to the shops, instead of using mechanised transport. The activity does not have to be intense, however there is some evidence that heart disease prevention may depend on a higher degree of activity.
Can exercise be harmful?
There is a common misbelief that physical activity may be bad for, or strain the heart. However this is not true even for heart disease patients! physical activity is good for most people with heart disease. However, If you are unfit, or suffering from a heart related condition it is best to seek the advice of a physician and to very gently build up your exercise level.
Is there just one easy plan to beat the major heart threats?
There are many websites, books, radio and TV shows, and magazine articles all offering cardiac heart information, and promising the miracle cure to a healthy heart, and protection against death from heart attack, heart disease and heart risk.
This is not surprising as high blood pressure and heart disease affects nearly 1 million people in the United kingdom, and shockingly kills more than 110,000 people annually. It’s a big problem which none of us can afford to ignore.
Heart Deaths Statistics
The number of heart related deaths in the UK alone is the equivalent of thousands of fully loaded jumbo jet airplane crashes each year.
This is a mind numbing statistic, and it is incomprehensible why so many people do not take the time to learn more about this silent but prolific killer in our midst.
Scientific Evidence is key to beating Heart Disease
The key to understanding the condition is to look into the scientific evidence, and to understand the many different factors which may contribute to this devastating disease. This may offer the only hope of fighting back against the threat which blights so many of our lives.
A fascinating study was conducted in 2004 and published in the British Medical Journal, The Lancet. This study titled ‘INTERHEART: Nine factors that could save your life’ made an important discovery by examining the lifestyles of 30,000 people in 52 countries.
Nine Risk factors for Heart Disease
The effect of these nine risk factors is consistent in men and women, across different geographic regions, and by ethnic group, making the study applicable worldwide.
It concluded that irrespective of where you live, how old you are, or what you look like, 90 % of first heart attacks (myocardial infarction) suffered by people can be attributed to nine risk factors, which usually result in a particular type of disease of the heart.
These nine risks are as follows :-
* cigarette smoking
* high ratio of blood lipids (or blood fats)
* high blood pressure (greater than 120 / 80)
* diabetes
* abdominal obesity
* excessive stress
* lack of daily consumption of fruits and vegetables
* insufficient daily physical exercise
* excessive alcohol consumption
An encouraging conclusion from the Interheart report however, is that all the above risk factors can be reduced by positive preventative action by the sufferer.
So, tackling any or all of the above risk factors which you may identify is applicable to your own life, will improve your chances of avoiding serious health problems or death from coronary heart disease.
Lower Blood Pressure Quickly ?
Further advice from the Interheart report concludes that crash courses in heart health improvement are unlikely to produce effective results, and it is very difficult to lower your blood pressure quickly, or improve your general heart health in a hurry. Instead, a progressive and holistic approach involving heart-healthy foods, stress relief, exercise and elimination of unhealthy lifestyle choices are recommended as necessary changes to enjoy a long and healthy life.
High Blood Pressure can be caused by the Internet
We all take the Internet for granted, but what happens when you see the dreaded ‘page not found’ message or your Broadband Router is telling you that your ISP’s service is down?
Are you feeling stressed by the Internet?
Well, in an increasing number of us, this is causing us to have feelings of stress or anxiety, which can lead to raised blood pressure and other associated health problems linked to stress. Unfortunately the signs of high blood pressure (hypertension) are hard to identify, and so this condition often goes undiagnosed. Also most people would not naturally associate blood pressure and software in the same breath.
Discomgoogolation
The problem is so widespread that there is now a word which describes it – discomgoogolation – which describes the stress that people feel when they are unable to go online. It is based on the adjective ‘discombobulated’ which means having self-possession upset, being frustrated or being thrown into confusion. The scale of the problem may be a significant factor in the growing number of high blood pressure causes.
- visible signs of stress
In the United Kingdom it is estimated that a significant 44 percent of the population may suffer from this condition when the trigger condition arises, with an estimated 25 percent or more who took part in a recent survey of 2100 people by the YouGov polling organisation, reported increased feelings of stress when they were prevented from going online by a technical failure.
76% of the population now admit that they cannot live without the Internet
The survey also found that a staggering 76 percent of the respondents felt that they could not live without being able to access the Internet. So the life source of modern communications may also be responsible for raising our blood pressure. This is understandable as the internet has spread into most homes across the United Kingdom, with over half of the population using the web between one and four hours per day, and with 19 percent of people spending more time online than they do with their family during the average week. The condition was discovered by psychologist Dr David Lewis whose research involved measurement of heart rate and brain activity linked to normal internet usage, and monitoring the body’s reaction to problem scenarios where the internet was unavailable. Dr. Lewis commented that “The proliferation of broadband has meant for the first time in history [that] we’ve entered a culture of ‘instant answers’ … and we have become addicted to the web. When [we are] unable to get online, discomgoogolation takes over”. Forty-seven percent of those polled believed that the Internet was more important in people’s lives than religion, with one in five people paying the Internet more attention than their partner.