Relationship between physical activity and heart failure risk in women

Physical activity is a modifiable health-related behavior shown to be associated with reduced risk of coronary heart disease and stroke. There is some evidence that this could also be the case for heart failure. We investigated whether total physical activity, as well as different domains of physical activity, was associated with heart failure risk.

The Swedish Mammography Cohort was used in which 27 895 women were followed up from 1997 to 2011. First event of heart failure was ascertained through the Swedish National Patient Register and Cause of Death Register. Cox proportional hazards regression analyses were conducted to estimate multivariable-adjusted hazard ratios and 95% confidence intervals. We also analyzed survival percentiles by applying Laplace regression. During an average follow-up time of 13 years (369 207 person-years), we ascertained 2402 first events of heart failure hospitalizations and deaths. We found that moderate to high levels of total physical activity were associated with a reduced risk of future heart failure. When looking into different domains of physical activity, walking/bicycling >20 minutes/d was associated with 29% lower risk of heart failure (95% confidence interval, -36% to -21%), when investigating survival percentiles this could be translated into 18 months longer heart failure-free survival.

Our study shows that physical activity could protect against heart failure in women. When looking closer into different domains of physical activity, walking or biking ≥20 minutes every day was associated with the largest risk reduction of heart failure.