Heart-Healthy Walks and Heart Attacks

Finally, we end our healthy news focus this week with a study that looked at the effects of brisk walks on cardiac health. Guess what? It’s no surprise they found that people who engaged in brisk walks had a 50% less chance of having a heart attack or stroke during the study.

Brisk Walk and Heart Health

Ten thousand people were followed for ten years for health behaviors. They found that it wasn’t just walking but a rapid “heart-healthy” walk that had the positive effect on health. A leisurely stroll won’t do the trick.

We don’t always pay attention to specific instructions when we talk to people about increasing their activity level. We encourage patients to become more active, and hopefully we also encourage ourselves to become more active. One of the things that we say is any activity is good activity and to a certain extent that’s true. But it takes vigorous activity that increases heart rate and “makes you sweat” that has the most cardiovascular benefit.

Educate Patients On Health Behaviors

Remember this when you talk with your patients about increasing their activity. This article was picked up at Medical News Today’s site. Find the links everything I talk about in these news segments over at NursingShow.com in the show notes for this episode. I hope you will follow up on the information so that you can better understand the things I’ve been talking about rambling on about here on the show.

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Follow up on the link for this news item and all of the additional news and resource links in the show notes for this week’s episode — Nurse Review of Bronchodilators and Episode 215.

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