How You Run on a Treadmill May Predict Your Death Risk

How well you do on a treadmill may actually predict when you'll die. Scientists have analyzed data from 58,000 heart stress tests and have developed a formula that estimates one's risk of dying over a decade based on treadmill exercise ability.

Several exercise-based risk scoring systems are already in use for short-term risk. These tests are strictly for patients with established heart disease or overt signs of cardiovascular trouble. In contrast, the new algorithm can gauge long-term death risk in anyone.

"The notion that being in good physical shape portends lower death risk is by no means new, but we wanted to quantify that risk precisely by age, gender and fitness level, and do so with an elegantly simple equation that requires no additional fancy testing beyond the standard stress test," said Haitham Ahmed, lead investigator of the new study, in a news release.

The formula factors in age, gender and peak heart rate reached during intense exercise. It also factors in the ability to tolerate physical exertion as measured by so-called metabolic equivalents (METs), which are a gauge of how much energy the body expends during exercise.

"The FIT Treadmill Score is easy to calculate and costs nothing beyond the cost of the treadmill test itself," said Michael Blaha, senior study author. "We hope the score will become a mainstay in cardiologists and primary clinicians' offices as a meaningful way to illustrate risk among those who undergo cardiac stress testing and propel people with poor results to become more physically active."

The new test is huge in terms of testing how much at risk a person is. In addition, testing fitness among those with "normal" stress test results may reveal telling clues about cardiac and respiratory fitness and, therefore, overall death risk over time.

The findings are published in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

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