Resting after heart attack could be a fatal mistake

WASHINGTON - Recovering heart-attack patients might be making a big mistake by taking it easy, research from Texas shows.

Men and women who stayed active after a first heart attack were significantly less likely to die early or to have a second heart attack, doctors report in the journal Circulation.

"Patients who kept physically active after a first heart attack had a 60 per cent lower risk of fatal heart attack or a second nonfatal heart attack than those who did not," said Lyn Steffen-Batey, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Texas, who led the study.

The researcher emphasised that anyone who had had a heart attack should consult a doctor before starting any exercise regime.

Professor Steffen-Batey said that unlike other studies that have focused on a specific group, her results applied no matter how severe someone's heart attack was and held for men, women, smokers and people with high or low cholesterol.

She and colleagues studied 406 survivors of a first heart attack who had been admitted to hospitals in the Corpus Christi, Texas, area.

The patients were asked about their smoking and eating habits and other factors that influenced their health. They were also classified as active or sedentary, depending on what physical activities they had performed in the past year.

Most of the people who reported vigorous or moderate activity were walkers. People who did fairly heavy gardening or housework also counted as moderately active.

"The sedentary group - they watch TV or they work a lot, they ride in a car a lot, they take elevators. Even light housekeeping would be put into the sedentary group.

"If they are not running upstairs to vacuum here and vacuum there, they count as sedentary," said Professor Steffen-Batey.

Not surprisingly, only four of the people in the study, all of whom had had one heart attack, were classified as vigorous exercisers. Regular, vigorous exercise significantly reduces the risk of ever having a heart attack.

Smoking and eating habits had little effect on who had a heart attack, said the researchers, who followed the 400 people for between two and seven years.

"We asked people about diet - were they on a special diet [as a result of their heart attack]. No, they really weren't," Professor Steffen-Batey said.

"There's no difference between people who died or had a second heart attack compared to those who didn't. And there were equal numbers of former smokers and current smokers and never smokers. That was surprising."

Exercise was key.

"There were some people who increased their activity, but then there were some people who decreased activity after they had their first heart attack," said Professor Steffen-Batey. People from both groups were less likely to have a second heart attack, so long as they kept up some activity.

In 1998, researchers found that doctors who had a heart attack and who exercised - defined as breaking a sweat two to four times a week - reduced their risk of dying from another heart attack by 40 per cent.

The doctors who exercised vigorously just once a week reduced their risk of all kinds of death by 20 to 30 per cent.

Other studies have shown that walking briskly for three hours each week reduces a woman's risk of heart disease by 30 to 40 per cent.

- REUTERS