Exercise and Heart Disease

Transcript

When talking about exercise, patients are often very eager to do very aggressive exercise, and everybody thinks that they have to run marathons to be healthy. And I actually think that exercise like everything else has to be done in moderation. Because extreme exercise is not good for the joints of the body nor good for long-term durability of the body in general. And what I find is very ironic, the healthiest people I would presume would be the marathon runners, but every year, one or two people at marathons have either a heart attack or sudden death. And my opinion is that that extreme exertion and that stress causes inflammation. And we know inflammation is what leads to plaque rupture and heart attack and complications. So my recommendation in general is exercise in moderation. None of my patients with or without heart disease need to run marathons to stay healthy. And to me, and what I’ve seen to be supported by evidence is that walking 30 minutes, minimum five days a week gives you the same benefit in terms of cardiovascular health, as jogging and running and other exercises,