Slow walkers are twice as likely to be victimized by heart-diseases as compared to the general lot, according to a study.Read more here.
Slow walkers more vulnerable to heart disease
HIGHLIGHTS
- Slow walkers are more prone to heart-related diseases
- a persons walking pace is a good measure of his or her overall fitness
- handgrip strength appeared to be a weak predictor of heart-related deaths
You need to start taking care of yourself from a young age as mid-aged people, who are slow walkers are twice as likely to be victimized by heart-diseases as compared to the general lot, according to a study. Irrespective of the gender, slow walkers are more prone to heart-related diseases as compared to brisk walkers. The results of the study were the same in case of both and were not affected whatsoever by factors like smoking, BMI, diet or how long they watched television.
The Principal Investigator from the University of Leicester, Tom Yates said that their study was interested in the link between things like whether people are slow or brisk walkers and if they can predict their possibility of dying from a heart disease or cancer in the coming years.
The date picked 420,727 people for research who were not affected by heart disease or cancer at that time. In the upcoming 6.3 years, approximately 8,598 died with the sample population being studied. Out of these 1,654 died from cardiovascular disease and 4,850 from cancer. This suggests that walking at a habitual pace is independently a predictor of heart-related death.
It was also found that a person's self-reported walking pace was linked to his or her objectively measured tolerance for workout or exercise. Further, it also suggested that a person's walking pace is a good measure of his or her overall physical fitness. Hence, self-reported walking pace could be used as a parameter to identify individuals, who are not as fit physically and are prone to a high mortality risk that would benefit from targeted physical exercise interventions.
The team also analysed that a person's actual handgrip strength can be measured by a dynamometer to check if it was a good predictor of cancer or heart-related deaths. But handgrip strength appeared to be a weak predictor of heart-related deaths in men and hence couldn't be generalised across the population as a whole.
This study got published in European Heart Journal.
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