Midlife Cardiovascular Fitness Predicts Healthy Aging - General Medicine

It seems obvious that people who exercise throughout their lives would be healthier than those who do not. Often times people who have not exercised for many years feel that the window is closed for them and it's "too late to start". The good news is that it's never to late to start. This is the summary of an article that was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine this past September. In short, the study followed a patient population for 26 years and found that the people in the top 20% of fitness for their age group had a 50% lower rate of developing chronic illness when compared with the group in the bottom 20%. Time to hit the road!

Midlife Cardiovascular Fitness Predicts Healthy Aging

Better fitness was associated with lower risk for chronic conditions during the next 26 years.

Robust midlife cardiovascular (CV) fitness is associated with lower cardiovascular-related mortality, but what about morbidity? Researchers assessed relations between fitness and several chronic conditions (ischemic heart disease, congestive heart failure, stroke, diabetes mellitus, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, chronic kidney disease, Alzheimer disease, and lung or colon cancer) in older individuals by linking a preventive medicine registry to Medicare data. About 19,000 participants (mean age at entry, 49; 79% men) received full baseline fitness and medical assessments and were stratified into five quintiles of fitness. Most participants had relatively favorable CV risk profiles at entry.

During a median 26-year follow-up, participants in the highest fitness quintile had about half the prevalence of chronic conditions than did those in the lowest quintile. In adjusted analyses, each metabolic equivalent increase in baseline fitness was associated with roughly 6% reduction in risk for developing a chronic condition.

Comment: Although these results are not surprising, they add another motivation for encouraging midlife cardiovascular fitness: This approach can lower risk for frailty and comorbidities while improving quality of life in older people.

— Thomas L. Schwenk, MD

Published in Journal Watch General Medicine October 4, 2012

CITATION(S):

Willis BL et al. Midlife fitness and the development of chronic conditions in later life. Arch Intern Med 2012 Sep 24; 172:1333. (http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/archinternmed.2012.3400)