Fitness May Trump High Cholesterol

[Kaiser]

Results of a new study suggest that walking just a few hours a week (about 30 minutes a day) can cut a man’s risk of heart disease in half - regardless of his cholesterol level. The findings, published in the Aug. 30, 2005 rapid access edition of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, showed that fitness mattered more than cholesterol among a large group of men followed for a decade. Researchers analyzed the cardiovascular risk factors and fitness of more than 19,000 men between the ages of 20 and 79 who were treated at a preventive medicine clinic from 1979 to 1995. Over the study period, 179 of the men died of heart disease. Those with high cholesterol proved to be at highest risk. However, men who had high cholesterol but were physically fit had only half the chance of dying as men with the same cholesterol levels who weren’t fit. In this study, fitness was defined as the ability to walk 30 minutes per day four to five days per week.

Source: Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, rapid access edition, Aug. 30, 2005

[gardener]

My own experience with exercise and cholesterol won't be relevant to 20-year-olds, but might be for those in their 40s.

Several years ago my doctor put me on the statin Lipitor to lower the bad sort of cholesterol. Shortly thereafter I began to think I was going into congestive heart failure. I was getting terrible muscle pains in my legs and had to sit down after walking half a block. (This was when I was in terrible shape, overweight, and hardly getting any physical exercise.) At lunch one day a friend mentioned that she had to stop Lipitor because of leg pains. Eureka!

My doctor put me on Provachol instead. Everything was okay. Meanwhile I got the gym habit big time and now walk an hour a day almost daily. But last week I started getting pains in glutes and hamstrings...and it took me a day or two to realize that at my last doctor appointment he changed Provachol dosage from 40 mg. daily to 40 mg. and 80 mg. on alternate days. I went back to the old dosage and everything is fine again.

Kaiser's post suggests that I'm better off keeping up the walking with higher chol levels than upping the statin and cutting back on the walking.

[Q.]

K,

I know that's especially good news for you! I think FITNESS trumps many things that we worry about and I'm glad to see that someone actually did that kind of study... although I doubt the drug co's are!