Mid-age right time to regain youthful heart

One study found those aged 45 to 64 could greatly lift heart health. Photo / 123RF

Late January can be a difficult time for anyone who began a new exercise routine on New Year's Day. Research has shown that nearly half of all resolutions have faded by the end of January, and it gets worse from there. The situation can look especially dire for midlife adults beginning an exercise habit after years of inactivity.

If you find yourself struggling, three new studies might rekindle your motivation. All conclude that midlife (and older) adults can sustain an exercise routine and gain a range of health benefits.

The most remarkable of the papers, "Reversing the Cardiac Effects of Sedentary Aging in Middle Age," was published in Circulation, the journal of the American Heart Association. For the two-year study, the researchers used a randomised, prospective design with an experimental group and controls.

Individuals in the exercise group, who had an average age of 53 when they started working out after years of sedentary living, lifted their aerobic fitness by 18 per cent. They also improved their cardiac compliance, or elasticity, by 25 per cent.

The improvement in cardiac elasticity was deemed particularly noteworthy, as it had never been seen before in midlife adults. Loss of elasticity is a major cause of heart failure, which results in many hospitalisations and deaths in the over-65 population.

"A 25 per cent [gain] in cardiac elasticity is huge," said Ben Levine, senior author and director of the Institute for Exercise and Environmental Medicine in Dallas.

The control group practiced yoga, balance exercises or strength training three times a week for two years - much more than many inactive adults. Yet their aerobic fitness declined by 3 per cent, and their cardiac compliance didn't change.

In earlier studies, Levine had shown that older athletes have roughly the same degree of cardiac compliance as young adults. However, he had also discovered that regular exercise couldn't increase the cardiac compliance of subjects over 65. Now he believes he has found the "sweet spot" in time when adults can still enhance their heart function: From ages 45 to 64.

"We have [shown] that if you incorporate regular exercise into your daily life, starting no later than middle age, you can restore the youthfulness of your heart muscle," he says.

Levine's subjects followed an exercise programme similar to those used by serious athletes, starting with low-intensity "base training" workouts three times a week for 30 minutes each. After four weeks, the subjects began using a little more effort. Later, they added interval training to their regimen, and one weekly longer workout of at least 60 minutes. During peak training, they worked out four or five times a week for about 180 minutes in total - 30 minutes more than the minimum standard of 150 minutes per week recommended by many fitness guidelines.

Some would judge this programme too hard and time-consuming for many busy adults. Levine disagrees, noting that his subjects completed 88 per cent of their assigned workouts, with nearly a quarter hitting 97 per cent.

"Exercise is so [vital] people should think of it as part of their personal hygiene, like brushing their teeth," he says.

"You should do one fun activity for at least an hour on the weekend, and one hard activity for 30 minutes ... another day. Then, on another two or three days, exercise for 30 minutes [in front of TV]."

Another new research report, from Mayo Clinic Proceedings, tracked changes in fitness and mortality among more than 6000 men and women who were, on average, in their late 40s at the outset. Those who maintained or improved their fitness over 4.2 years had a 40 per cent lower mortality rate than those who lost fitness due to insufficient activity.

While 65 may represent an upper age limit for changes to heart function, consistent exercise can offer other health payoffs to older adults. A study just published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine investigated the walking habits of 139,000 Americans who were nearly 71 years old, on average, when first monitored. Thirteen years later, those who reported little to no weekly walking had died at a rate 26 per cent higher than those who walked regularly, but for less than two hours a week. Those who walked two to six hours a week had a mortality rate 36 per cent lower than the under-two-hour walking group.

Says Levine: "I ask my patients: If there was a pill [that could increase your strength, balance, and endurance while reducing the risks of heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, Alzheimer's and many cancers, would you take it?"