Fitness Level Predicts Women’s Heart Health Better Than BMI

Although excess weight is a key risk factor for the development of cardiovascular disorders, a woman’s level of physical activity appears to be a more useful marker of current and future heart health, according to a study sponsored by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI).

Study results appear in the September 8 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

"Few studies have examined the specific role of physical activity and fitness," said senior author C. Noel Bairey Merz, MD, cardiologist, director of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center’s Preventive and Rehabilitative Cardiac Center, and director of the Women’s Health Program. "The tendency to focus only on weight as a risk factor fails to address the related but more important lack of physical fitness among overweight individuals."

Increased activity is an ideal therapy to help ward off cardiovascular problems. Research shows that being fit may be more important to a woman’s heart health than her weight or body type.

Data for the study were derived from findings among 906 women in the ongoing Women’s Ischemia Syndrome Evaluation (WISE) study, which Dr. Bairey Merz directs as principal investigator.

Among the participants, 76 percent were categorized as overweight and 41 percent obese. But despite the fact that women in the higher BMI categories had numerous risk factors for coronary artery disease, there was no difference in the presence or severity of disease, based on angiograms.

When analyzed by categories of weight and activity, women who were at least moderately active had significantly less incidence of congestive heart failure, heart attack and angina than women with low activity scores, no matter which weight category they were in.

"Because physical fitness has beneficial effects on many factors related to cardiovascular risk-including obesity-increased activity appears to be an ideal therapy for women with coronary heart disease. The American Heart Association’s prevention guidelines recommend that women accumulate at least 30 minutes of moderate- intensity physical activity on most or all days of the week. Physical fitness assessment and intervention should be included in the management of all women at risk for heart disease," concluded Dr. Bairey Merz.

Copyright Benjamin Franklin Literary and Medical Society Sep 2004