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Wisdom Wednesdays - An Important Lifestyle Behaviour That Can Either Greatly Benefit Or Massively Age Your Heart · Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Welcome to another edition of Wisdom Wednesdays.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Today, I'm going to talk about your good old ticker
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  Speaker 2: and what we actually need to do to preserve its function,
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  Speaker 2: which becomes increasingly important as we get older. Now, as
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  Speaker 2: you're probably aware, cardiovascular disease is the biggest killer, and
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  Speaker 2: it's actually the biggest killer by quite some distance. It
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  Speaker 2: way way way outperforms cancer when it comes to deaths,
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  Speaker 2: particularly in the Western world, and a lot of people
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  Speaker 2: are missing out on something that is really significant. There's
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  Speaker 2: lots of talk out there that I hear about cholesterol
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  Speaker 2: levels in terms of your heart and blood pressure, but
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  Speaker 2: not a lot of people talk as much as they
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  Speaker 2: should do about exercise. So our heart is obviously pretty
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  Speaker 2: vital to our survival, and it really does thrive on movement,
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  Speaker 2: and it very much suffers in the absence of movement.
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  Speaker 2: And we know that sedentary behavior is particularly bad. But
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  Speaker 2: there was one study that I've recently come across that
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  Speaker 2: is just amazing in terms of the insights, and then
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  Speaker 2: there's been a couple of follow up studies that have
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  Speaker 2: been linked to it. So these insights come from a
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  Speaker 2: study that was performed in nineteen sixty six called the
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  Speaker 2: Dallas Bedress Study, and I can't believe I'd never heard
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  Speaker 2: of it, because when I read it, I'm like wow.
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  Speaker 2: And it provided what for me, are pretty groundbreaking insights
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  Speaker 2: into the impact of physical inactivity on our cardiovascular system.
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  Speaker 2: So this was quite extreme. What they did is they
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  Speaker 2: took five hell the young men and put them in
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  Speaker 2: complete bed ress for three weeks, and then they looked
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  Speaker 2: at what actually happened to their heart, and then they
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  Speaker 2: trained them for eight weeks. And the results were pretty
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  Speaker 2: amazing because what they actually did then is they found
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  Speaker 2: these people and followed them up decades later, and what
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  Speaker 2: they found was after just three weeks of bed rest,
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  Speaker 2: they experienced a whopping twenty seven percent decline in their
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  Speaker 2: VO two max that's your maximum oxygen uptick. That is
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  Speaker 2: the gold standard measure of your cardio respiratory fitness. You
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  Speaker 2: may have heard me talk about it before. And they
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  Speaker 2: had a twenty six percent decrease in their maximal cardiac output,
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  Speaker 2: so basically how much blood in total that the heart
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  Speaker 2: could actually pump out, and that was primarily due to
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  Speaker 2: a thirty percent reduction what we call stroke volume. So
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  Speaker 2: that's the amount of volume that you're left ventricle can
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  Speaker 2: actually pomp out. So basically, three weeks of complete inactivity
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  Speaker 2: just completely destroyed heart function, like reductions of twenty six
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  Speaker 2: percent increase in the kodiac output, twenty seven percent decline
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  Speaker 2: in video two max, and a thirty one percent reduction
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  Speaker 2: in stroke volume in three weeks. That is completely bonkers.
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  Speaker 2: But here's the really interesting thing is they followed them
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  Speaker 2: up thirty years later. Right now, actually, let me go
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  Speaker 2: back again, and what they did with these people was
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  Speaker 2: they then trained them and they actually got the back
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  Speaker 2: after eight weeks of training, right, But what they did
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  Speaker 2: was they followed them up thirty years later and they
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  Speaker 2: find that with thirty years of normal aging, their base
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  Speaker 2: their VIEO two max had declined by twelve percent from
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  Speaker 2: what it was at the start of the study. So
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  Speaker 2: that was less than half the decline of three weeks
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  Speaker 2: of bad rests. So what this is saying of three
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  Speaker 2: weeks of being completely sedentary is significantly worse for your
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  Speaker 2: heart than thirty years of aging, which is just bunkers. Now,
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  Speaker 2: normal aging is associated with gradual declines in our cardiovascular
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  Speaker 2: function as well as muscle strength and all these different things.
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  Speaker 2: But when we look at particularly our cardiovascular health. It's
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  Speaker 2: associated with reductions in VO two max, in cardiac output,
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  Speaker 2: and in stroke volume. The amount that you can pump
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  Speaker 2: out and then cardiac output is a measure of booth,
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  Speaker 2: your stroke volume and your heart rate. Now this, as
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  Speaker 2: I said, the Dallas Bad Rests study highlighted that the
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  Speaker 2: deterioration from just three weeks of inactivity was greater than
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  Speaker 2: thirty years of aging, and that really does underscore the
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  Speaker 2: profound impact that inactivity has on heart health, and I
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  Speaker 2: think really should elevate our discussion around exercise to mitigate
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  Speaker 2: the effects of aging. So we've known that exercise training
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  Speaker 2: has the part reversed the detrimental effects of sedentary behavior.
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  Speaker 2: So because, as I said, those participants in the Dallas
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  Speaker 2: Bay ad Risk study, after they had those ridiculous declines
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  Speaker 2: in their cardiac function, and they did eight weeks of
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  Speaker 2: endurance training and that then resulted in a pretty remarkable
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  Speaker 2: forty five percent increase in their VO two max and
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  Speaker 2: a forty percent rise in maximal cardiac output. So not
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  Speaker 2: only was eight weeks of endurance training able to offset
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  Speaker 2: the negatives, but they actually got significantly better. Right, So,
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  Speaker 2: just to go through it, again, Initially they had a
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  Speaker 2: twenty seven percent reduction in VO two max, and they
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  Speaker 2: then got a forty five percent increase, So they were
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  Speaker 2: ended up significantly better, nearly twenty percent better than what
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  Speaker 2: they were than when they went into the study. Now
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  Speaker 2: there was a more recent study that adds to a
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  Speaker 2: little bit of this. It is a two year randomized
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  Speaker 2: control trial investigating the effects of exercise training on previously
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  Speaker 2: sedentary middle aged adults. So this starts to then have
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  Speaker 2: implications for large portions of the population. And they find
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  Speaker 2: up with these guys that regular exercise not only increased
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  Speaker 2: their VO two max by eighteen percent, but also significantly
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  Speaker 2: reduced left ventricular stiffness. So that is a really key factor.
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  Speaker 2: So that left ventricle, that's the part of the heart
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  Speaker 2: that is pumping the blood out through the aa or
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  Speaker 2: to get to the rest of your body, and over
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  Speaker 2: time it becomes stiffer and the muscle just doesn't work
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  Speaker 2: as well, and that's when we start to get heart failure.
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  Speaker 2: And you see that that left for ventricular stiffness is
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  Speaker 2: associated with heart failure. Now, the exercise regime that they
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  Speaker 2: did with these guys that was a mix of high
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  Speaker 2: intensity interval training and more moderate intensity continuous training, and
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  Speaker 2: that really highlighted the importance of a varied levels of
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  Speaker 2: exercise for cardiovascular health. And I think I'll do another
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  Speaker 2: podcast to really go into what is the best way,
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  Speaker 2: the best types of training to actually improve the function
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  Speaker 2: of your heart. And it is a combination of cardiovascular
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  Speaker 2: training and strength training. But I think what these two
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  Speaker 2: studies show together is that our hearts are highly responsive
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  Speaker 2: to both inactivity and to exercise. So we talk about plasticity,
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  Speaker 2: and it's just like the heart is like other So
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  Speaker 2: you don't use it, you lose it, and that can
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  Speaker 2: cause heart failure over time. That sedentary behavior and leads
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  Speaker 2: to rapid declines in cardiovascular function, whereas regular exercise can
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  Speaker 2: dramatically improve heart health reverse in the effects of aging
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  Speaker 2: and inactivity. Now, other studies have shown that if you
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  Speaker 2: have been sedentary for long periods of time or even
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  Speaker 2: for a while, getting on the exercise treadmill, so to speak,
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  Speaker 2: in middle age is really really important. I think I'll
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  Speaker 2: talk about some other studies that showed training in middle
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  Speaker 2: age has amazing effects. So when you're in your fifties, forties, fifties,
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  Speaker 2: you're going to have amazing effects on your heart as
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  Speaker 2: an enormous amount of plasticity, and that just starts to
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  Speaker 2: decline the ability of the heart to change. We've seen
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  Speaker 2: in other studies where they go into seventy year olds
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  Speaker 2: and they don't get anywhere near the improveds that they
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  Speaker 2: get with the same training protocol in fifty year olds.
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  Speaker 2: So it really is about getting on the bandwagon reasonably early,
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  Speaker 2: and certainly when you're in your forties, in your fifties,
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  Speaker 2: it is absolutely time to act. But that doesn't mean
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  Speaker 2: that you do nothing. If you're older than that and
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  Speaker 2: you're listening to this, it's just that the return on
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  Speaker 2: your investment is going to be a bit of a
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  Speaker 2: harder shift. So it is really about starting early. But
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  Speaker 2: I think that Dallas bad rest study that just blew
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  Speaker 2: my mind that three weeks of complete bad rest is
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  Speaker 2: significantly worse for your heart than thirty years of aging.
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  Speaker 2: And so it's just thinking about all the time that
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  Speaker 2: we're spending sitting. I know it's not complete bed rest,
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  Speaker 2: but all that time that you're just not moving is
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  Speaker 2: really bad for your heart. I mean, it really is,
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  Speaker 2: user or lose it, and that is one muscle that
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  Speaker 2: you do not want to lose function of That's it
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  Speaker 2: for this week, folks. I'll catch you next time when
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  Speaker 2: I will go into a training protocol in pretty good
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  Speaker 2: detail about how to improve your overall cardio of Asker
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  Speaker 2: fitness and your overall heart health. Catch you next time.