“Men who could get through 40 or more push-ups had 96 percent less risk of heart problems in the next 10 years than those who quit at 10 or fewer.”
A new 10 year longitudinal study Published by Yang et al (2019) in the Journal Of American Medical Association JAMA Network
Men who can
breeze through 40 push-ups in a single exercise session are substantially less
likely to experience a heart attack or other cardiovascular problem in
subsequent years than men who can complete 10 or fewer.
The results suggest
that push-up ability might be a simple, reliable and D.I.Y.-in-your-living-room
method of assessing heart health, while at the same time helpfully
strengthening the triceps and pectorals.
As almost all of us
know, cardiovascular disease is the most common cause of death globally. Heart
attacks and strokes also lead to considerable disability, lost work time and
otherwise circumscribed lives and abilities.
But avoiding or
treating cardiovascular disease requires recognizing that it might have begun
or is on the horizon. Many medical tests of heart health, however, such as
treadmill exercise-stress testing or heart scans, are expensive and complicated
and can be difficult to interpret.
Many of these tests
also generally are designed to pick up heart disease after it has started, not
to predict the likelihood that it might develop. Meanwhile, mathematical risk
scores that evaluate information about a person’s weight, cholesterol profile,
smoking history and other health data are predictive, but in a way that is
broad, impersonal and abstract.
Doctors and the rest
of us who rely on our hearts have had little ability to evaluate cardiovascular
health and the risk for future problems in a simple, scientifically valid,
personalized and visceral way.
That void prompted
researchers at Harvard University, Indiana University and other institutions recently
to consider the health and fitness of a group of more than 1,500 Indiana
firefighters.
The firefighters reported each year to a single clinic in Indiana
for a medical checkup that included the standard assessments of each
firefighter’s weight, cholesterol, blood sugar and other health data. They also
completed a sub-maximal treadmill stress test that estimated their current
endurance capacity.
The researchers
originally were most interested in that last measurement. Plenty of past
studies have linked high aerobic fitness with a reduced risk for later heart
disease and vice versa. The researchers thought that they might be able to
quantify how well the treadmill test predicted future heart problems by using
the database of firefighters’ health information.
So, they gathered
information about each man’s stress test results — few women were working as
career firefighters in this group, so only men were included. They also
recorded any cardiovascular problems reported to or uncovered by clinic
physicians in the 10 years after each firefighter’s first appointment. The data
about heart problems was fairly comprehensive, since the firefighters needed
their physician’s approval to return to work after even minor heart concerns.
The researchers planned
to compare stress test results to subsequent cardiovascular problems to get a
sense of how prescient the treadmill testing might be.
Then, almost
incidentally, the researchers noticed that more than 1,100 of the firefighters
also had completed push-up tests during their yearly exams.
That testing had
been bracingly analog: a clinic staffer counted how many push-ups each man
could complete before his arms gave out or he reached 80 and was told he could
quit showing off and stop.
Since they had the
push-up data, the researchers slipped it in as a second data set in their
examination of current fitness and later heart problems, categorizing the men
by how many push-ups they could complete: zero to 10; 11 to 20; 21 to 30; 31 to
40; and 40-plus.
They then crunched the data.
To everyone's surprise,
push-up capability proved to be a better predictor, statistically, of future
heart problems than the sub-maximal treadmill tests.
Men who could complete
at least 11 push-ups had less risk of developing heart problems in the
following decade than those who could complete fewer than 10, they found.
This risk reduction
mounted impressively at the highest level of push-up ability.
Those men who
could get through 40 or more push-ups had 96 percent less risk of heart
problems in the next 10 years than those who quit at 10 or fewer.
The findings suggest
that push-up capability might be an easy-to-use marker of cardiovascular
disease risks, the researchers concluded, at least in men who resemble the
firefighters.
Of course, this study
was observational. It can show that more push-ups are linked with fewer heart
problems, but not that arm strength directly improves heart health or whether
becoming able to do more push-ups will drop the risk for heart problems over time.
It also cannot tell us how the two might be linked.
Push-up proficiency
probably also indicates an interest in healthy eating, regular exercise and
normal weight, he says, all of which could contribute to stronger hearts.
Best of all, push-up
testing is simple, requiring only the ability to count. If that count should
end before 10, however, you may want to talk to your doctor or a trainer about
how to increase your fitness and strength and perhaps better protect your
heart.
Could push-ups foretell the future and the state of a person’s heart?
The Bulletproofbodies Team Salute the Authors of this study.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/20/well/move/how-many-push-ups-can-you-do-it-may-be-a-good-predictor-of-heart-health.html
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Mbr55h3BeQ
