Exercise is essential for the health of your heart and cardiovascular system. But for years Research has shown These are very fit people – especially young men – have a better risk of developing atrial fibrillation (an irregular heartbeat) later in life than people who find themselves less energetic.
But our latest large-scale study by greater than one million young Swedish men challenges this long-standing concern about fitness and heart health. The study shows that the danger of atrial fibrillation in very healthy people is lower than previously thought. And above all, the advantages of being fit – corresponding to lower rates of other cardiovascular diseaseslike for instance stroke And heart attack – the potential disadvantages clearly outweigh the potential disadvantages.
To conduct our study, we analyzed data from over a million Swedish men. Each of those men had accomplished compulsory military service between 1972 and 1995 once they were roughly 18 years old. During military service, fitness was estimated using a maximal ergometer bicycle test.
We tracked participants using national health registries until 2023. Information on diagnoses in specialized outpatient and inpatient care was collected, in addition to information on explanation for death where applicable.
Nearly half one million of those men were siblings, allowing the team to check brothers with different fitness levels. This method also helped control for shared genetics and upbringing to raised understand risk.
Within the population-wide evaluation, which compared all men based on their fitness levels, the fitter men showed a better risk of atrial fibrillation as much as age 40. Nonetheless, after age 45, the advantages—fewer other heart problems—outweighed the danger.
However the sibling evaluation told a distinct story. When comparing brothers, the connection between high fitness and atrial fibrillation weakened significantly. The general positive effect of fitness on general cardiovascular health was evident from the beginning, even though it also diminished within the sibling evaluation.
These advantages increased as men aged. Over five many years – from ages 18 to 65 – the advantages of high fitness outweighed the general risk of developing atrial fibrillation in any respect ages.
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While the upper risk of atrial fibrillation decreased within the fitter men within the sibling evaluation, an increased risk remained. Nonetheless, overall this risk was low. The potential risk of developing atrial fibrillation was also far outweighed by the positive advantages that physical fitness had on reducing the danger of other cardiovascular diseases.
There was also evidence that the increased risk of atrial fibrillation appears to be because of typically milder types of atrial fibrillation.
Cardiovascular Advantages of Fitness
These results suggest that previous studies can have overestimated the danger of developing atrial fibrillation for those who are very fit because they may not fully account for common family aspects – corresponding to genes and customary environmental aspects – that may influence each Fitness and heart health.
Because our study was capable of take these common aspects under consideration, we were capable of show that we would must tone down the message that being very fit or doing aerobic exercise poses a giant risk to heart health. The danger of atrial fibrillation is just not zero, but the advantages to overall heart health are far greater.
Our results were also confirmed previous studies. Nonetheless, our research builds on these previous findings by including sibling comparisons within the analyzes and shows that the danger of atrial fibrillation is reduced.
Our study also conducted a more detailed examination of risk over time by following participants over time while also bearing in mind the advantages of high fitness. Subsequently, our research conducted a more direct comparison of advantages and harms over the life course.
Overall, our research shows how useful physical fitness is for overall cardiovascular health. Although very fit people have a rather higher risk of developing atrial fibrillation in comparison with less fit people, this risk is way lower than previously thought.
Moreover, we show that the general net advantage of fitness on cardiovascular health largely outweighs any potential risk.
