New Tool Includes Fitness for Predicting Cardiovascular Risk Long Term EHS Written by EHS Website Director

There is a growing research incorporating physical fitness into a simple risk-prediction tool can help hone cardiovascular disease risk prediction over the longer term [1]. Researchers used data from over 16 500 subjects with no CVD participating in the Cooper Center Longitudinal Study (CCLS) in whom fitness level was measured at baseline using a maximal treadmill exercise test, along with fasting blood cholesterol, triglycerides, glucose, personal history, smoking status, and standard physical exam. In over more than 400 000 person-years in the CCLS there were 1123 CVD deaths. As expected, traditional risk factors including age, systolic blood pressure, body-mass index (BMI), diabetes, total cholesterol, and smoking were associated with increased risk of CVD death. By contrast, fitness, measured as metabolic equivalents (METs), was associated with a 15 % to 18 % reduced risk over 30 years, with a stepwise increase in CVD risk across fitnesss levels. Importantly, when low fitness was compared with high fitness levels in subjects with other baseline risk factors, the long-term risk was considerably higher among those with low fitness, a difference not seen at the 10-year mark. For example, among men with stage 2 hypertension, low fitness was associated with a much greater difference in 30-year risk for CVD mortality compared with participants with high fitness level