鈥淟ook at Jim Fixx!鈥� cry the couch potatoes, citing the celebrity runner credited with kick-starting the jogging craze in the 1970s. At the age of 52, Fixx famously dropped dead from a heart attack midway through a run. Could exercise be a killer lying in wait for the unwary?
The risk of a heart attack does rise during vigorous exercise like jogging or shovelling snow. But the extent of the rise depends heavily on how accustomed you are to that exercise. For someone who is completely unfit, the risk can rise by as much as 100-fold, relative to when they are resting. For someone who regularly runs five times a week, their risk while exercising roughly doubles. The lesson, says David Stensel, an exercise physiologist at Loughborough University in the UK, is to be careful when you take up exercise. He advises gradually building up the intensity and duration of your exercise sessions, and that you have a medical check-up if you are over 35 and are not used to regular physical activity.
鈥淩isk of a heart attack during jogging does rise, but pales into insignificance beside its overall lifetime benefits鈥�
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Stensel points out that the raised risk, which lasts for the duration of the exercise and up to half an hour after it, pales into insignificance beside the overall lifetime benefits of regular exercise. Study after study has shown that keeping active lowers an individual鈥檚 risk of suffering a heart attack by 50 to 80 per cent.
That protective effect stays with you day and night 鈥� whether you are running a marathon or asleep in bed. There are a myriad other health benefits too. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e far better off exercising than worrying about your risk of heart attack during exercise,鈥� says Stensel.