Exercise to protect your heart more safely and effectively....

Today's Post:  Tuesday, 6-5-2012

Exercise to protect your heart is one of the most effective ways to do so. 

A.  But it can be risky and create the reverse effect under some circumstances.

1.  Recently a study was done which found that in one set of 6 studies of exercise and heart risk measures:  blood pressure, insulin levels, HDL cholesterol, and triglyceride, “about 10 percent actually got worse on at least one of the measures….&…” About 7 percent got worse on at least two measures”

2.  In some people, shoveling snow and long runs have caused fatal heart attacks.  And, studies of long distance runners have found several kinds of indicators of heart damage.

So how do you make sense of this and get the heart protection exercise can offer without the risks or make the risks much less likely?

1.  Clearly the exercisers in the first set of studies had recently added exercise in order to get this kind of before and after comparison.

There are 4 explanations that occur to me.

First, note that changes for the worst only happened in 10 % of the people.  So despite the fact it sounds bad, most people who begin to exercise escape it.

Second, some people new to exercise overdo how much they exercise or how fast they ramp up the effort or duration of the exercise. 

If you overtax your heart longer than it has the capacity for, it can cause damage or even a heart attack.  (This is clearly what happens to snow shovelers and many long distance racers.  We’ll come back to that point later.  Avoiding this kind of overstress is a BIG key to exercising safely and in a way that strengthens your heart.)

Third, some people may knock loose some plaque or show initial recovery stress more than others.  The good news for this is that adding some other ways to improve these measures and continuing to exercise long enough will reverse the problem.

Four, some people who exercise then eat more of fattening and harmful treat foods than the protection they get from the exercise can cover.  (For example if you walk two miles and then eat a large piece of pie as a reward, between the sugar and the refined grain in the pie and pie crust and the over 300 to 500 calories in the pie, you will then get fatter.  And with the sugar and the refined grain and often the hydrogenated oils in the crust, it will tend to boost your insulin and triglycerides and lower your HDL more than the exercise did the reverse.)

2.  If you overtax your heart longer than it has the capacity for, it can cause damage or even a heart attack.  (This is clearly what happens to snow shovelers and many long distance racers.)

Your heart can crank up intense effort for short periods of time.  And if you then let it rest, it can even do it again safely.

And as long as you do it lightly enough and rest soon enough, unless you were right on the verge of a heart attack when you began, your heart will make itself stronger both in how much it can ramp up and how long it can stay ramped up.

People who have heart problems while shoveling snow often start with untrained hearts and then cut themselves no rest breaks at all. 

The good news is that you can feel the effect, your heart rate speeds up noticeably and you get out of breath.  So notice if that happens after say 5 shovel-fulls.  Then stop and rest until your heart rate and breathing get back to normal.  Then do 3 shovel fulls and rest and repeat that.  If you are out of shape, you may find you have stop before the snow is gone.  Or you may need long enough rest breaks that you run out of time before the snow is gone.  But you will make some progress on removing the snow and avoid triggering a heart attack!

The better news is that if you do comparable interval cardio as an exercise that you do several times a week for a couple of years, you will then be able to do 5 shovel fulls and only rest for 5 seconds and still do it safely.  But shoveling snow is enough work, the short and regular rest breaks are essential.

Long distance running races are NOT good health protecting exercise because as many people do them, there are none of these kind of rest breaks for your heart.

Conversely, one study found that runners who ran shorter runs totaling up to 20 miles a week did get health protection and a lower overall chance of death.  And, since those were exercise runs and not races, people doing them could alternate a moderate or high moderate pace with faster sections several times during each run.

The good news is that by doing very vigorous exercise you build up to and alternate that with rest or a much easier effort, you can get quite fit with 3 or 4 sessions of this kind of interval cardio a week with sessions of only 10 minutes each. 

If you have time, doing a lot of walking too helps; and it’s moderate enough to not tax your heart unless you are massively overfat.

There are other kinds of interval cardio.  But Dr Al Sears’s PACE program and his articles on it is an excellent source for the information here.

It also helps that I’ve also experienced these effects personally while exercising and doing strenuous yardwork.

B.  You can stop doing things that harm your heart or make it less safe to exercise and do or begin to do things that protect your heart and make it safer to exercise.

Other studies show that continuing to get vigorous exercise every week with this approach not only moves all your heart risk indicators to more positive levels, it does so more every year you continue to do it.  Properly done -- and with the right support -- regular vigorous exercise will improve ALL of your heart indicators and do it safely.

a) One half of this is to stop doing things that harm your heart as soon as you even think of exercising and stay stopped as long as you do vigorous exercise.

1 & 2:  The two worst things to stop are exposure to tobacco smoke and ingesting any hydrogenated oils. 

Exposure to tobacco smoke, even from second hand smoke, actively works to create small particle LDL and deposits it into your blood vessel walls.  Avoiding tobacco smoke totally or virtually always even for second hand smoke makes it MUCH safer to exercise.  (And, if you quit, gradually getting into exercise once you stop will double your chances of quitting and begin to repair some of the damage.)

Eating hydrogenated oils and trans fats actively works to create small particle LDL and deposits it into your blood vessel walls.  Find out how to ingest NONE of this stuff and do it and exercising will become far safer.  Avoid most commercial baked goods since most of it still uses shortening which is all hydrogenated oil.  And, always read labels when the food has one.  If it lists ANY trans fat reading but zero OR any hydrogenated oils don’t buy it or eat it. (Zero means less than half a gram of trans fats per serving. So if it contains any hydrogenated oils, it can have significant amount of trans fats & usually does even if it SAYS zero.)

3.  Ingesting high fructose corn syrup or artificial sweeteners or refined grains is double nasty. 

(So is eating real sugar.  So minimize how much you eat.  Eat 7 tablespoons a month or less instead of 7 tablespoons a day!)

Ingesting these things tends to cause high blood sugar which adds a harmful version of LDL to your blood cells which causes or worsens heart disease. 

Even worse, ingesting these things boosts your triglycerides a lot and lowers HDL.  That means that, just like tobacco smoke and hydrogenated oils, ingesting these things often works to create small particle LDL and deposits it into your blood vessel walls.

If you stop ingesting these things, that too will make exercising to protect your heart safer and work better.

Stopping these blood sugar boosters and stopping trans fats and hydrogenated oils also helps a lot in losing fat and keeping it off.  That helps keep your blood pressure down and cuts your heart some slack when you aren’t exercising.

b) You can also eat foods and nutrients that make exercising safer and more heart protective.

1.    Eating or taking antioxidant nutrients and enough health OK protein and oils or fats makes your ability to exercise safely greater.

Studies have found that people taking vitamin C and E and selenium and who eat a lot of vegetables and some fruit tend to be able to exercise more without it depressing their immune system and slowing their recovery time from exercise.  Eating foods high in these things does even more to protect your health because of the very large number of added nutrients plus the vitamins and minerals they have.

2.  Whole eggs, wild caught fish, beans and lentils and black-eyed peas, and for those not allergic nuts, and nonfat and low fat dairy gives your body the protein it needs to recover from exercise.

3.  And, it’s easier to stay on an eating plan that has some fats and oils.   And omega 3 and monosaturated oils are actually good for you.  Extra virgin olive oil, wild caught fish, omega 3 supplements, and if you aren’t allergic nuts, and avocados all fit here. (Unfortunately, fats from grain fed animals and cheap vegetable oils such as corn and soy are too high in omega 6 oils which cause inflammation.  That inflammation causes heart disease. So here again making only  the health supporting choices makes exercising for heart protection safer.)

4.  Real niacin even in 300 mg amounts taken after meals is unusually heart protective because it boosts HDL and lowers LDL and triglycerides.  It also has been shown to lower the overall death rate of people who take it.

And, if your total LDL is over 100, taking sterol supplements lowers LDL significantly but with virtually no side effects.

Doing those two things in addition to the others listed here makes exercise for heart health dramatically safer and so much more effective it’s as if the exercise has a supporting wind at your back.

Bottom line, you CAN exercise more safely and get better heart protection if you know how do it.