Exercise Linked to Survival After First Heart Attack

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Exercise can increase the chances of survival after a heart attack, a new study by a team of researchers at John Hopkins and Henry Ford Health System suggests, Latinos Health reports.

“Our data suggests that doctors working with patients with cardiovascular risk factors should be saying, ‘Mr. Jones, you need to start an exercise program now to improve your fitness and chance of survival, should you experience a heart attack,'” says Dr. Clinton Brawner, Clinical Exercise Physiologist and Senior Bioscientific Clinical Staff Researcher at Henry Ford Health System. “These findings suggest that higher aerobic fitness before a heart attack is associated with better short-term survival after the first heart attack.”

The results of the study, which focused on 2,061 patients who suffered a heart attack after the stress test, showed that patients with high levels of fitness were a whopping 40 percent less likely to die “within a year following their first heart attack compared to patients with lower fitness.”

“While up to 50 percent of fitness may be based on genetics, physical activity is the only behavior we have that can improve fitness,” said Brawner.

The lack of exercise represents a risk of death following a heart attack that is similar to the risk of diabetes, high blood pressure and smoking, according to the researchers.

By The Numbers By The Numbers

20.7

percent

of Latino kids have obesity (compared to 11.7% of white kids)

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