Heart
disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women. According to statistics appearing on the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention website, heart disease leads the top ten
pack, accounting for 31 percent of all deaths for 2017, the latest-published
information.
National
Center for Health Statistics - USA Numbers for Leading Causes of Death
- Heart disease: 647,457
- Cancer: 599,108
- Accidents (unintentional injuries): 169,936
- Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 160,201
- Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 146,383
- Alzheimer’s disease: 121,404
- Diabetes: 83,564
- Influenza and pneumonia: 55,672
- Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 50,633
- Intentional self-harm (suicide): 47,173
The
above statistics are for all ages, both male and female. Since Pierini Fitness will be a “newly-crowned” Medicare Man next month,
he decided to see what the statistics are for age 65 years and above
males. According to the same source, for
males age 65 years and older all races and origins, diseases of the heart contributed
to 27 percent of all deaths for 2017.
This was surprising in that the percentage for all age groups male and
female.
Nonetheless,
it’s too high for Pierini Fitness
and has opened his eyes to the importance of doing everything possible for his
cardiovascular conditioning and health.
Obviously, diet is important, yet what the best way to eat for good
cardiovascular health is a topic of heated discussion among the many nutrition
expert factions in the world all believing they know best. I’ll say nothing more about cardiovascular
health nutrition in this post, saving that discussion, perhaps, for a different
day.
But
I continue to believe that exercise does contribute to my cardiovascular
conditioning and health. To have some
objective way of assessing, I like numbers, such as heart rate statistics
obtained from my Garmin heart rate fitness monitor that I capture with each
workout. I’m an analytical junkie when
it comes to my fitness, health and wellness.
Last
year, about this time, I reported the results of a YMCA
Bench Step Test for Cardiovascular Fitness. This test rated my performance as excellent,
so I was pleased.
I
recently read an article written by a medical doctor cardiologist who goes by
the cyberspace name of The Skeptical Cardiologist. He has a
website where he shares his unbiased and evidence-based articles he has written
discussing the effects of diet, drugs and procedures on heart disease.
The
article I read shared the doctor’s experience in measuring his heart rate
recovery (HRR) after a workout he did and how research evidence indicates that
HRR is a simple and powerful predictor of mortality.
What’s
HRR?
It’s
the rate of decline in heart rate after you quit exercising. It’s measured by taking your heart rate
(beats per minute of bpm) right after you stop exercising and again a minute
later (and/or two minutes later) and subtract one from the other.
The Skeptical Cardiologist’s
article referred to a 1999 study that
reported the results of a cardiovascular research study measuring HRR and mortality
risk. In the research, the median HRR was
17 bpm but 26 percent had an HRR of less than 13 bpm. Patients with an HRR of
less than 13 bpm had a double risk of dying.
Another
follow-up study of about 10 thousand patients found that an HRR of less than 13
bpm doubled the 5-year risk of death.
Yet
another study reported that a 2-minute HRR of less than 22 bpm provided a
better measure predicting mortality at seven years than the one-minute test.
While
regularly measuring heart rate performance during my workouts, the HRR stat hasn’t
regularly been one of them but it’ll now be moving forward.
Yup,
I’m interested in my HRR.
Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum
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