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- Increasing physical activity by an hour weekly reduces atrial fibrillation risk by 11%.
- Activities like walking, gardening and dancing can help, not just intense workouts.
- The study used Fitbit data from over 6,000 participants, highlighting long-term activity benefits.
SALT LAKE CITY — More is better, but adding even an hour of physical activity a week could reduce risk of developing a common heart arrythmia. And you don't have to run marathons and climb flights of stairs to get the benefits. Walking, gardening, dancing and housework can all make a difference, according to research being presented this week to an American Heart Association gathering.
The heart condition is atrial fibrillation, an irregular heartbeat in the heart's two upper chambers that prevents regular blood flow to the two lower chambers. Afib, as it's often called, can lead to stroke, heart failure and other problems. More than 10 million people in the U.S. are believed to have the condition. That's about 5% of the adult U.S. population, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Close to a half-million people are hospitalized with atrial fibrillation each year and it contributes to about 158,000 deaths annually, as well.
The study, led by New York University Langone Health researchers who looked at data from more than 6,000 Fitbit users who were part of the All of Us Research Program, found that an extra hour a week of increased activity reduced the risk of developing the irregular heartbeat by 11%.
While other studies have reported exercise reduces risk, this study looked at actual activity levels over months as recorded by the fitness trackers, instead of relying on self-reports or short periods when fitness is tracked, said Dr. Sean P. Heffron, assistant professor and director of cardiovascular fitness and nutrition at the NYU Center for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease and NYU Langone Health.
"The results of our research really go hand in hand with things that I say to my patients very frequently," Heffron told Deseret News, noting the target audience for the study's message is "basically nearly any American — given that very, very few of us have adequate levels of physical activity. Adding a little bit more will do your body good ... Even 10 to 12 minutes a day can make a difference in this diagnosis."
Heffron emphasizes that it doesn't require an extra hour in the gym, but can be enjoyable physical activities that can be "relatively easily incorporated into a daily routine." Think about what you like to do, like gardening, then liven it up a little, he said.
Those who benefit the most are, he added, "those who have typically done the least — those individuals who go from doing little to nothing to doing really anything. The unfortunate thing is you're going from high risk to less high risk. But the absolute impact can be quite large," he said.
About the study
Besides allowing researchers to look at their Fitbit data, most also allowed the data to be linked to their electronic health records so that data that wasn't initially looked at could be studied later if desired.
Heffron said the "long-term, objective measure of physical activity" sets the study apart.
Study participants who average between 2.5 and 5 hours of moderate to vigorous activity a week — the minimum amount recommended by the American Heart Association — had 60% less risk of developing atrial fibrillation. Those who exceeded that amount had 65% less risk.
The All of Us research project was designed to include people who are often under-represented in medical research, whether because of sex, race and ethnicity, socioeconomics and other factors, like living in rural areas instead of urban centers where in-person research projects typically occur. Hundreds of thousands of participants who were recruited for All of Us filled out questionnaires, gave blood samples and had their health tracked over time.
The Afib study focused on the subset of 6,068 who had their own Fitbit devices, an admittedly more homogenous group than that desired for the All of Us project, as they tended to be a bit more economically well-off and able to afford their own devices. Many of them were college-educated white women, making it perhaps less generalizable to the broader public, Heffron said.
On the other hand, studies that provide fitness trackers or accelerometers tend to hand them out for a short time. There's also a chance that findings are skewed because people know their activity is being tracked for a specific week or so, so their activity levels might be higher than normal. In this study, the Fitbit activity for a year was tracked as a baseline, and then the individuals were followed for five more to see who developed Afib.
Next, the researchers plan to look at whether working out in the morning and working out at night have different health effects, said study lead author Souptik Barua, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Medicine at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. "By offering an objective way to measure exercise for years at a time, these tools can provide deeper insight into how different patterns of activity can impact health," Barua said in a written statement.
