A Little Exercise Goes a Long Way to Cut Disease, Death Risk

Even 15 minutes a day seems to increase life expectancy, researchers say

MONDAY, Aug. 15 (HealthDay News) -- Just 15 minutes of physical activity a day can reduce your risk of death by 14 percent and increase your life expectancy by three years, a new study suggests.

Current recommendations call for adults to do at least 150 minutes, or a total of 2.5 hours, of physical activity weekly.

But the new study finds that doing even less than that -- 15 minutes daily is about 105 minutes a week -- still provides benefits.

The study included more than 400,000 people in Taiwan who were followed for an average of eight years. Based on their self-reported amounts of weekly exercise, they were placed in one of five categories: inactive, low, medium, high or very high activity.

The people in the low-activity group exercised for an average of 92 minutes per week, or just under 15 minutes a day. Compared to those in the inactive group -- who did almost no physical activity -- those in the low-activity group were 14 percent less likely to die from any cause, 10 percent less likely to die of cancer, and had a three-year longer life expectancy, on average.

Every additional 15 minutes of daily exercise beyond the minimum 15 minutes further reduced the risk of all-cause death by 4 percent and the risk of cancer death by 1 percent.

The benefits of even low levels of physical activity were seen in all age groups, in both men and women, and in people with cardiovascular disease risks.

The study appears online Aug. 15 in The Lancet.

"In Taiwan, if inactive individuals engage in low-volume daily exercise, one in six all-cause deaths could be postponed -- mortality reductions of similar magnitude have been estimated for a successful tobacco control program in the general population," wrote Dr. Chi-Pang Wen of the National Health Research Institutes in Taiwan, and colleagues.

"If the minimum amount of exercise we suggest is adhered to, mortality from heart disease, diabetes and cancer could be reduced. This low volume of physical activity could play a central part in the global war against non-communicable diseases, reducing medical costs and health disparities," they concluded.

The study results could help get more people off the couch, according to an accompanying editorial.

"The knowledge that as little as 15 minutes per day of exercise on most days of the week can substantially reduce an individual's risk of dying could encourage many more individuals to incorporate a small amount of physical activity into their busy lives," wrote Dr. Anil Nigam and Dr. Martin Juneau, of the Montreal Heart Institute and Universite de Montreal in Quebec.

"Governments and health professionals both have major roles to play to spread this good news story and convince people of the importance of being at least minimally active," they added.

More information

The U.S. National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute offers a guide to physical activity.

-- Robert Preidt

SOURCE: The Lancet, news release, Aug. 15, 2011

Last Updated: Aug. 16, 2011

Copyright © 2011 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

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Study: Weight-loss drug ups risk of heart attack, stroke in some

By Anne Harding, Health.com

September 1, 2010 5:40 p.m. EDT

(Health.com) -- Overweight people with a history of heart disease who take the prescription weight-loss drug Meridia may be at increased risk of heart attack or stroke, according to a study published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The study confirms longstanding concerns about the safety of Meridia in people with heart disease and other heart problems, who are already warned against taking the drug.

A Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory committee is scheduled to meet later this month to discuss the possibility of increased regulation for Meridia. The meeting was prompted by the preliminary results from the study, known as SCOUT, which were released by the agency in November 2009.

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In the study -- which was sponsored by the drug's maker, Abbott Laboratories -- researchers followed 10,744 overweight and obese people who had heart disease or type 2 diabetes and a risk factor for heart disease (such as high blood pressure) for about 3.5 years.

During that time, 4.1 percent and 2.6 percent of the people taking Meridia had a nonfatal heart attack or stroke, respectively, compared with 3.2 percent and 1.9 percent of the people taking a placebo pill. That translates into a 28 percent increased risk of heart attack and a 36 percent increased risk of stroke, according to the study.

However, Meridia did not appear to increase the risk of heart attack or stroke in diabetics with no history of heart disease. Nor did the researchers find any differences in the death rates from heart attack, stroke, or other causes in people taking Meridia versus placebo.

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Lead researcher W. Philip T. James, M.D., an obesity expert at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, in the U.K., says that the study underscores that Meridia should not be prescribed to people with existing heart problems.

But, he adds, "it does not prove that you should extrapolate the data to the normal population for which the drug is intended."

The active ingredient in Meridia, sibutramine, suppresses appetite by affecting levels of the brain chemicals serotonin and norepinephrine. The drug is designed to be used by overweight and obese people, not by people who are a bit chubby and are trying to slim down.

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Meridia has been shown to slightly raise blood pressure and heart rate, and the cardiovascular risk associated with the drug has been known for years.

Since being approved by the FDA in 1997, Meridia has carried a warning on its label that says the drug should not be used in people with a history of heart disease, heart failure, heart-rhythm problems, or stroke.

In January 2010, after reviewing the preliminary data from the SCOUT study, the FDA asked Abbott to strengthen the warning. The European Medicines Agency -- the European equivalent of the FDA -- chose to suspend sales of the drug in the European Union.

In an editorial accompanying the study, three New England Journal of Medicine editors suggest that the heart risk associated with Meridia is not justified by the weight loss seen in the study -- about 9.5 pounds (or 4.5 percent of initial body weight) after one year, on average.

"[I]t is difficult to discern a credible rationale for keeping this medication on the market," the editors write.

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The FDA would be going too far if it pulled the drug from the market, says Donna H. Ryan, M.D., associate executive director for clinical research at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She notes that the patients taking Meridia who were at greater risk for heart attack and stroke in the SCOUT study -- those with preexisting cardiovascular disease -- are already precluded from taking the drug.

The study should not be interpreted to mean that the drug shouldn't be used at all, says Ryan, who prior to 2008 served as a consultant for Abbott and other manufacturers of obesity drugs.

"The study doesn't really support that, and indeed, in the population where you didn't have preexisting cardiovascular disease...there is no increased risk," she says.

Sidney Wolfe, M.D., the director of the health research group at Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy organization that petitioned the FDA to ban Meridia for safety reasons in 2002, says that even people who haven't been diagnosed with heart disease should avoid Meridia. Some obese people have unrecognized heart problems that may be aggravated by the drug, he says.

Meridia "should never have been approved in the first place," Wolfe adds.

The FDA's advisory committee on endocrinologic and metabolic drugs will discuss Meridia on September 15. The agency is not required to follow the committee's recommendations, but it typically does.

Copyright Health Magazine 2010

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