When heart disease runs in the family, exercise tied to lower risk

People who get plenty of exercise are less likely to have heart attacks and strokes than their inactive counterparts, even when they have a genetic predisposition for heart disease, a UK study suggests.
Among roughly half a million people in the UK, those with greater grip strength, more physical activity and better cardiovascular fitness had a lower risk of heart disease - even when heart attacks or strokes ran in the family, researchers found.
"Even if you are at a high genetic risk, you can improve your chances of remaining in good cardiovascular health by doing exercise," said senior study author Erik Ingelsson, a researcher at Stanford University School of Medicine in California.
For example, among people in the study with an intermediate genetic risk for cardiovascular diseases, individuals with the strongest grips were 36 percent less likely to develop coronary heart disease and had 46 percent lower odds of developing atrial fibrillation than people with the weakest grip strength, researcher report in Circulation.
And among people with a high genetic risk for cardiovascular diseases, those with the best cardio respiratory fitness had a 49 percent lower risk of coronary heart disease compared to participants with the poorest cardio respiratory fitness. They also had a 60 percent lower risk of atrial fibrillation, a common heart rhythm problem that predisposes people to strokes.
Participants in the study didn't have heart disease when they enrolled in the research project. They ranged in age from 40 to 69. Half of them stayed in the study for more than six years.
Overall, they experienced 20,914 cardiovascular events such as heart attacks, strokes, atrial fibrillation and heart failure. Researchers used a physical activity questionnaire to assess how much exercise people got. They also did treadmill tests to assess fitness, hand-held tools to test grip strength, and collected genetic data on most of the participants.