Beware vigorous exercise!

To be honest I have never had to be warned about vigorous exercise as it doesn’t suit me at all. As a follower of the D’Adamo blood group diet my ‘type’ works best with yoga and tai chi and whenver I have tried a gym or aerobics class I haven’t had the ‘high’ but only the desire to curl up in a ball and sleep it off. Now it seems that research from New York University Medical Center suggests that the more you engage in vigorous exercise, the more you’re at risk for atrial fibrillation (AF). This is a an irregular rapid heart rate and can result in mild symptoms like fainting to the potentially lethal ones of heart failure or stroke.

If you have serious, unrecognized, heart disease then exercise may cause you to experience sudden death from a heart attack. In fact, the leading cause of exercise-related deaths, even in well-trained athletes, is coronary heart disease. The research showed that men in their study who exercised enough to break a sweat from five to seven days each week upped the chances of developing AF by a massive 20 percent. The control group who did no vigorous exercise didn’t have any increase in their propensity for AF.

This research was not based on older, unhealthy men but rather on healthy men under 50 who ran regularly. In this group AF increased by 53 percent in men who jog, and as much as 74 percent for young men who routinely exercise hard enough to sweat. Anyone for a nice walk?