Exercise helps coronary bypass patients

Coronary artery bypass patients’ health improves with exercise, researchers in Poland said.

Dr. Tomasz Mikulski and colleagues at the Medical Research Centre in Warsaw, Poland, found six weeks of aerobic training using a cycloergometer — a static bike whose pedal load can be set and user performance measured — improved the physical capacity of patients who had received coronary bypass surgery.

Within an average of two months of surgery, 60 optimally treated patients — mean age of 56 years — were randomly assigned to either of aerobic training three times per week on the cycloergometer or to a non-exercise control group.

The exercise group showed improvement in exercise duration and maximum workload. Other measures taken — heart rate, blood pressure and stroke volume — also improved in the exercise group, as did some metabolic markers such as low-density lipoprotein, the bad cholesterol.

The findings were presented at the scientific program of EuroPRevent 2009 — the congress of the European Association of Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation held in Stockholm, Sweden.