GPs too flabby in prescribing exercise

Doctors should prescribe exercise as a way to lower blood pressure and prevent heart disease and diabetes, the American Heart Association says.

Exercise often works as well as drugs, yet doctors fail to advise patients to get off their sofas and walk, cycle or run, the group said this week, citing data from 44 different studies.

The heart association and US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommend 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise such as brisk walking on most or all days.

One problem is that doctors are not trained in preventing disease, but only in treating it, said Paul Thompson, director of preventive cardiology and cardiovascular research at Hartford Hospital in Connecticut, who led the study leading to the report.

"That's not the whole story here because a lot of stuff we are talking about here is not about prevention - it is about sick patients and making people feel better," he said.

Another problem is that drug companies spend millions promoting medicines and training doctors in their use, but no one does the same thing for exercise, Thompson said.

"This is, to my knowledge, one of the first times we have tried to show physicians not only the role of exercise ... but how much they can expect to improve cholesterol levels, how much they can expect to improve blood pressure," he added.

The recommendations, published in the association's journal, Circulation, show that regular modest exercise can raise HDL, or "good", cholesterol by 4 per cent and lower LDL and triglycerides, the "bad" cholesterol, by 4 to 5 per cent.

The CDC reported this week in the Archives of Internal Medicine that patients with type-II or adult-onset diabetes who walk as little as two hours a week lower their risk of dying prematurely by more than one third.

Doctors need to set an example by getting fit themselves, Thompson said.

"We point out that physicians really need to get involved in helping communities redesign exercise areas and in making sure that there are walking trails and things like that."

More than 700,000 Americans die of heart disease each year, making it the nation's number one killer.

- REUTERS