Exercise has always been emphasized for preventing cardiovascular events. For those with sedentary lifestyle here is something to know.

  Team@CMHF

A lifetime of even light exercise protects the heart but also the legs, according to a study showing reduced risk of peripheral arterial disease (PAD).

A sedentary lifestyle predicted 46% higher risk of peripheral arterial disease compared with a lifetime of recreational activity of any intensity (P=0.044), John P. Cooke, MD, PhD, of Stanford University Medical Center in Stanford, Calif., and colleagues found.

The biggest incremental gain in PAD protection was going from essentially no activity to minimal activity, though more activity was more protective, the group reported online in the Journal of Vascular Surgery.

Even light activity, such as strolling, is enough to protect against peripheral arterial disease,” Cooke told MedPage Today in an interview
Physicians should take these results as one more reason to recommend an active lifestyle to their patients but should also heighten clinical suspicion for peripheral arterial disease when they know patients are sedentary, the researchers noted.

Once people get peripheral arterial disease, the pain from claudication may limit activity.
Among 1,381 patients who came in for elective coronary angiography at two centers in the study, 30% reported being entirely sedentary with no lifetime recreational activity.

Inactive individuals were nearly twice as likely overall to have peripheral arterial disease as participants who reported the most active lives
While the observational study couldn’t determine causality, the investigators suggested possible ways that exercise could stave off peripheral arterial disease.

Exercise may enhance endothelial function, by upregulating vasoprotective pathways such as heme oxygenase, superoxide dismutase, and nitric oxide synthase, and by downregulating the expression of proteins mediating vascular inflammation and thrombosis,” they wrote.

Other possibilities are better microcirculatory function and endogenous fibrinolysis and reduced age-related arterial stiffness, the group added

Ref: http://www.medpagetoday.com/Cardiology/PeripheralArteryDisease/27984?utm_content=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DailyHeadlines&utm_source=ET&userid=333280