Cardiovascular disease and midlife exercise

The study associates 16% of lower risk of depression with high level of midlife fitness  (HR 0.84, 95% CI 0.74-0.95) and lower risk of death of about 61% from cardiovascular disease  (HR 0.39, 95% CI 0.31-0.48) in adults whose ages were at least 65 years without a diagnosis of depression. This is according to the report issued by Benjamin L. Willis. MD, MPH. from the Cooper Institute, Dallas, and his colleagues in JAMA Psychiatry.

Midlife fitness modifiable

The authors termed Midlife fitness as a risk factor that is modifiable and which has not yet been studied. They also talked about the advantages that follow a diagnosis of depression later in life. Those who took part in the high fitness group and were diagnosed with late-life incident depression vividly demonstrated that there is 56 percent lower risk of death caused by cardiovascular disease (CVD, HR 0.44, 95% CI 0.31-0.64) when compared to those individuals with low fitness levels.

Data was sourced from all of the 17,808 participants who had enrolled in the Cooper Centre Longitudinal Study and were attending for middle life examination in Dallas. (CVD, HR 0.44, 95% CI 0.31-0.64) time measurement to maximum effort on a treadmill using the modified Balke protocol was used in determining cardiorespiratory fitness. Every participant’s treadmill time was then placed in different categories; an age- and sex-specific cardiorespiratory fitness quintle ranging from 1 (Lower fitness), 2 and 3 (Moderate fitness), through to 4 and 5 (high fitness).

Depression in high fitness category

The rate of depression in the high fitness category was found to be 22.2 per 1,000 people-years (1,041 diagnoses) as compared with the low fitness category, and 26.2 in the category of the moderate fitness (1,136 diagnoses) versus 30.7 in the low fitness category (524 diagnoses).

But for CVD mortality without incident depression, it was found out that the rate in the high fitness category per 1,000 person-year(84 deaths) was 3.9 deaths as compared to 5.7 in the moderate fitness category (249 deaths) with the lower fitness category having 10.42(177 deaths).

For CVD mortality after depression, the result showed that the rate in the high fitness category stood at 16.1 death per 1,000 person-year (61 deaths) as compared to 25.8 in the moderate fitness category (107 deaths) with the low fitness having category having 32.9 (63 deaths).

Incidence of depression diagnosis was collected by the use of claims data from the Centers of Medicare Services while data for CVD mortality was gathered from the National Death Index. For an individual to participate, he or she was expected to have no pre-existing history of depression  or CVD at the time of their midle life examination.

Out of almost 18,000 participants, 80.2% of them were men whose mean age was 50.

In order to fit attained age, Willis’ group used modeling and also adjusted for midlife age, sex, systolic blood pressure, year of examination, smoking, BMI. Cholesterol level and fasting glucose levels.