Marty
Well-known member
I just got back from my treadmill workout and this news came across the wire.
A person's peak exercise capacity as measured on a treadmill test is a more powerful indicator of how long someone will live than risk factors such as heart disease, high blood pressure,cholesterol, or smoking a new study says.
The study. done by researchers from the VA Palo Alto Care System/Stanford University, amounts to some of the strongest evidence yet of the importance of physical fitness.
For the study, patients with and without heart trouble were given treadmill tests where they were hooked up to sensors- including a mask to measure the amount of oxygen and CO2 in each breath.
They gradually increased the speed and inclination and continued to exhaustion, chest pain, etc.
The study found that that a person's chances of staying alive rise 12% with each increase of one "metabolic equivalent" when exercising as hard as one can.
A "metabolic equivalent" or MET is defined as the amount of oxygen used by the average person at rest. Two MET's is roughly equivalent to walking 2 mph; 5 METS at 4mph; 8 METS to a 6mph jog. The risk for those who couldn't get past 4MET was twice that of those who could get up to 8 METS. Whether you have or don't have heart disease going into the test, the higher you go the better you do in the long run.
This is not an endurance test- its a test of peak exercise capacity.
Walking briskly for 30 minutes three or four times a week was found to increase peak capacity. In fact the study found the greatest improvement in death rate was largest between the lowest 20% and the next lowest 20%.
This study was done on 6200 men some who had heart trouble and some who did not. They were followed for over a decade during which 1256 died.
A person's peak exercise capacity as measured on a treadmill test is a more powerful indicator of how long someone will live than risk factors such as heart disease, high blood pressure,cholesterol, or smoking a new study says.
The study. done by researchers from the VA Palo Alto Care System/Stanford University, amounts to some of the strongest evidence yet of the importance of physical fitness.
For the study, patients with and without heart trouble were given treadmill tests where they were hooked up to sensors- including a mask to measure the amount of oxygen and CO2 in each breath.
They gradually increased the speed and inclination and continued to exhaustion, chest pain, etc.
The study found that that a person's chances of staying alive rise 12% with each increase of one "metabolic equivalent" when exercising as hard as one can.
A "metabolic equivalent" or MET is defined as the amount of oxygen used by the average person at rest. Two MET's is roughly equivalent to walking 2 mph; 5 METS at 4mph; 8 METS to a 6mph jog. The risk for those who couldn't get past 4MET was twice that of those who could get up to 8 METS. Whether you have or don't have heart disease going into the test, the higher you go the better you do in the long run.
This is not an endurance test- its a test of peak exercise capacity.
Walking briskly for 30 minutes three or four times a week was found to increase peak capacity. In fact the study found the greatest improvement in death rate was largest between the lowest 20% and the next lowest 20%.
This study was done on 6200 men some who had heart trouble and some who did not. They were followed for over a decade during which 1256 died.
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