You add years to your life expectancy by exercising. Now you are going to find out why that is true. Here are three factors to keep in mind:
Exercise raises your HDL, and the more vigorous, the better. I know a friend who decided to begin jogging and set three miles as his goal. He told me that on the first day he made it to his neighbor’s mailbox. The second day he ran twice as far and soon was able to run a whole block. (By the way, he did walk for a total of three miles each of those days.) He did get to the point where he was running three miles a day at a nice clip. Get off the couch and begin, no matter how long it takes to get to your neighbor’s mailbox. Set aside thirty minutes, and start being active in some way. Look at how exercise is such a protective factor for your arteries.
The Effect of Exercise on HDL Cholesterol
A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine gives a good summary concerning the relationship between exercise intensity and cholesterol. Some of the facts show the significance researchers placed on which type of exercise was performed. There were three exercise groups.
Their most active group was labeled “high-amount-high-intensity exercise.” This group was equivalent to jogging approximately 20 miles a week at 65 to 80 percent peak oxygen consumption (pretty heavy exercise).
The second group was labeled “low-amount-high-intensity exercise,” and that was the equivalent to jogging approximately 12 miles a week at 65 to 80 percent peak oxygen consumption.
And the third group was labeled “low-amount-moderate-intensity exercise,” with the equivalent of walking approximately 12 miles a week at 40 to 55 percent peak oxygen consumption.
All in all, you can see that there is a significant difference in the amount of exercise each group did: (1) jogging 20 miles, fast pace; (2) jogging 12 miles, fast pace; and (3) walking 12 miles.
This study concluded that exercise definitely has a beneficial effect on cholesterol numbers. And the greater amount the exercise, the greater effect there is on the HDL/Total Cholesterol ratio score.
What caught my attention was that the LDL Cholesterol numbers came down but not nearly as significantly as the HDL Cholesterol numbers went up. The report showed a clear beneficial effect on the HDL Cholesterol, especially in the high-amount-high-intensity group: the greater the exercise, the greater the effect on raising their HDL, which affected the ratio of HDL to LDL significantly.
Other studies show as much as a 4 to 6 percent rise in HDL even with light exercise, such as stroller walkers and brisk walkers.
Your HDL level is profoundly related to protecting the blockage and inflammatory process in your arteries. This is substantiated by statements found in the Third Report of the National Cholesterol Education Program Expert Panel on Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Cholesterol in Adults. This is one of the most comprehensive studies on cholesterol in medical literature. First, researchers show strong evidence that low levels of HDL Cholesterol are associated with an increase in deaths related to coronary heart disease. They also point out the other side of the coin by stating that high HDL Cholesterol levels result in a reduced risk. This emphasizes that the health of your arteries is directly related to your HDL level.
They also stressed that physical inactivity has a similar artery disease risk as do smoking and diabetes.
Another study reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine reviewed articles from multiple medical journals to evaluate the effect of exercise on HDL and what protection that has on arteries. This review shows that with exercise, the HDL Cholesterol number is raised a little over two and a half points. Researchers then correlated this finding with another study, which had studied how beneficial it is to raise HDL even a single point. That correlation showed that for every point elevation of HDL Cholesterol, there is a 2 to 3 percent less chance of developing coronary heart disease of the arteries. The term they used in stating that exercise increases one’s HDL Cholesterol was “highly significant.”
Their recommended minimal exercise period was 120 minutes of weekly exercise—equal to thirty minutes a day, four days a week. But they pointed out that more is even better.
To put into perspective how much you could expect your HDL to increase as you exercise more, they found that for every ten minutes above that 120-minute minimum weekly exercise, you can expect nearly a one and a half point net increase in your HDL number. That means if you exercise thirty minutes a day for six days a week, you can raise your HDL in the neighborhood of ten points. Remember also that you get bonus points if you lose weight at the same time you are exercising. Such an increase has a significant effect on your HDL/Total Cholesterol ratio.
This all becomes more noteworthy when you fit it into your Prescription for Life plan. Not only are you improving your arteries by raising your HDL Cholesterol, but you are also getting added protection by combining exercise with weight loss. Add to that the improvement you get by avoiding the foods that raise the lethal LDL Cholesterol particles. Then you begin to realize that disease of the arteries of the heart and brain can be avoided and how each lifestyle change compounds the protective action on your health.
As the infomercials say, “But wait, there’s more!” Exercise does even more than just increase your HDL Cholesterol.
Exercise and Cardiac Output
Your heart is the most important organ in your body, and how much you exercise plays a major role in its efficiency. Put your thinking cap on for this one. You are going to learn the great benefit exercise has on your heart, as a pump. Your heart pumps approximately 104,000 times a day, 38 million times a year, and is the primary organ responsible for furnishing nutrition and oxygen for your body.
I didn’t know these precise numbers at the time, but the thought of how many times my heart had to beat precisely to keep the proper amount of blood pumping throughout my body kept entering my mind whenever I would pass a pumping station along the Alaska Pipeline route. You may remember seeing the ice road truckers on television, the people who haul supplies in Alaska above the Arctic Circle to Prudhoe Bay. Well, some friends and I rode our motorcycles up that Haul Road one summer, all the way up to Prudhoe Bay, where the pipeline begins.
The pipeline is eight hundred miles long, carrying oil from the Alaska oil fields down to Valdez. As I rode along, I began thinking of the similarity of those pipelines to the arteries of our bodies and how the oil pumping stations along the way operate similarly to the pumping action of our hearts. I realized that the most significant parts of that entire project were the pumping stations that are placed approximately twenty miles apart. Those pumps make the entire system work. They are positioned throughout the length of the pipeline to adjust the pressure and pump the oil along the line.
If a pump becomes weak or inefficient, the entire system will shut down. A plugged pump is the equivalent of a heart attack. Whenever any pump accidently shuts down, all focus centers on getting it repaired and back to work. And in an area where the record temperature reaches minus 72 degrees, such repairs could take days and days. So they do everything possible to keep the efficiency at peak. They practice prevention of pump shut down better than most people protect their hearts. They do whatever is needed to ensure that each pump stays in premier shape. Their primary goal is to not let a pump shut down.
Apply this concept to your heart. If you don’t take proper care of your heart pump, your project will also shut down. However, there is a huge difference between the pipeline pumping stations and your heart. They can spend two days battling the cold and finally get a pump running again, whereas if your pump stops, you die.
So listen up and see how exercise makes your heart pump more efficiently. A conglomerate of reports shows that exercise will do two things to your heart muscle. First, your heart will pump more blood with fewer contraction beats because it will become stronger with exercise. And second, it will pump blood more efficiently because your heart muscle isn’t going to need as much oxygen as the inefficient heart muscle of someone who is sedentary. Basically, the heart muscle of someone who exercises properly is so strong that it requires less oxygen to make it beat each time. It’s like an engine in an automobile that is so efficient it can get thirty miles per gallon of gas versus a less efficient engine that gets only twenty.
With those two factors in mind, let’s see what the studies show concerning the result of exercise on the efficiency of the heart.
First, researchers have found that exercise increases the amount of blood ejected by the heart per minute. This is called your cardiac output. Of course, if your heart is stronger, it can pump a greater amount of blood per minute.
Stay with me. It gets a little involved, but I want you to understand that the stronger your heart muscle is, the less oxygen your heart muscle requires. If you take your heart rate and multiply that number by the top number of your blood pressure, you get what is called the index of oxygen demand. That number gives you an indication of how much oxygen is required by that heart muscle before it runs out of oxygen and quits working. In essence, the exercised, stronger heart muscle requires less oxygen to carry on its work than the weaker, sedentary heartmuscle.
The stronger heart muscle, which is developed from exercise, requires less oxygen to pump an equal amount of blood than a weaker heart muscle. Reports show that a heart with a strong muscle needs only about half of the oxygen required by one not made strong by exercise.
The most significant medical advice in this regard is don’t chance waiting for symptoms before doing something about protecting your heart.
The second most significant medical advice is if symptoms do occur and you are told you have had a light attack, or you have to have a stent placed, or even a bypass operation, there are immediate measures you must take to protect your future.
Whether you have had very little blockage or more severe obstruction, once the event is over, exercise has a most significant positive effect on the muscle of your heart.
A study of almost five thousand patients evaluated the benefit of exercise after a cardiac event. It was reported in the medical journal Circulation. The overall result was that cardiac rehabilitation with exercise resulted in approximately a 20 percent reduction in total mortality and a 26 percent reduction in cardiac mortality. If you, or someone you know, have experienced a cardiac event, take that statement as a flashing, neon warning sign. Obviously, reduction in mortality means reduction in dying.
But the same study showed a difference in the chance of having another heart attack, even if the people studied didn’t die from it. It showed that cardiac rehabilitation with exercise resulted in approximately a 27 percent reduction in having another cardiac event compared to rehabilitation that did not include exercise. Exercise is one of those “have-to” factors if you have had a heart event. If you know someone who has had a stent or heart attack, remind them of this. They may even thank you for the information.
Also interesting is that, in the exercise group of the study, there were not only fewer recurring cardiac events but also fewer times those patients had to be rehospitalized. The basis for this is that exercise reduced the number of patients who developed angina, which required them to be hospitalized. Angina is what happens if an artery in the heart is partially blocked but not enough to cause the muscle to die. It is almost to that point but not quite there just yet. The muscle not getting enough oxygen begins to cause pain, but enough blood gets through to not shut the muscle down completely. The resulting angina pain creates a transient chest pain. Some describe heaviness or a discomfort in their chest, a burning sensation or a squeezing of their chest. Angina blockage is the lightest blockage and is usually a precursor to a full-blown heart attack waiting to happen. The report showed that exercise reduces the number of these angina attacks, thus, fewer hospitalizations.
Another extremely significant finding is that those same patients who exercised plus ate properly had even fewer subsequent stent placements and bypass operations. In other words, the report stressed the significance of the importance of overall lifestyle changes of both exercising and eating properly.
The bottom line of all these studies is that people who change their lifestyle after a heart attack or stent placement to include regular exercise have improved rates of survival. If you, or anyone you know, have had heart artery problems, get with a physician and get into a rehab program that includes exercise. And if you haven’t had symptoms of blockage of your arteries, get to work on preventing it ever getting to that point. Take these studies to heart—literally.