Long-term Prognostic Impact of Physical Activity in Patients With Stable Coronary Heart Disease

Stable coronary heart disease (CHD) patients are advised to practice regular physical activity (PA). However, data on very long-term prognosis impact of regular exercise remain scarce. We aimed to evaluate the impact of physical activity level on mortality at long term in stable CHD patients. We analyzed 822 patients with stable CHD. They answered questionnaires on medical history, underwent a standardized clinical examination, and provided a fasting blood sample. PA was evaluated by the MOSPA questionnaire. Three tertiles of patients were individualized according to PA level: 0.0-9 Metabolic Equivalent of Task (METs) hour per week (n = 267); 10-39.9 METs hour per week (n = 279); and ≥40 METs hour per week (n = 276). After a median follow-up of 14.6 years, 324 patients had died. In a multivariate analysis adjusted for age, dyslipidemia, smoking status, diabetes, high blood pressure, waist circumference, left ventricular ejection fraction, Gensini score, heart rate, ankle-brachial index and duration of disease, physical activity was significantly and independently associated with all-cause mortality. Compared to the lowest PA tertile, both the median and the highest PA tertiles, were associated to a reduction of all-cause mortality risk with hazard ratios at 0.79 (95%confidence interval [0.61:1.03], P = 0.08) and 0.71 ([0.53:0.96], P = 0.025) respectively; P for trend = 0.02. Adjusted hazard ratios for an increase of 10 METs hour per week was 0.95 [0.92 to 0.98], (P <0.002). In conclusion, our study demonstrates an independent association between PA and long term vital prognosis with a 5% total mortality decrease for an increase of 10 METs hour per week.