Facts about Heart disease
10 Myths about Physical Activity and Heart Disease

The Truth behind the Myth

Myth 1: Heart disease is the number one killer of men, and cancer is the number one killer of women
Untrue: Heart disease is the number one killer of men and women

Myth 2: Physical activity and exercise are synonymous in that they both involve playing competitive sports
Untrue: Physical activity is any body movement produced by skeletal muscles. It includes, walking, gardening, housework, etc. Exercise is a planned or structured physical activity that is undertaken to improve sport performance.

Myth 3: Lack of physical activity will not effect my risk for heart disease
Untrue: Inactivity is a greater risk for heart disease than high blood pressure, cigarette smoking, obesity and diabetes.

Myth 4: You have to undertake vigorous continuous exercise and be physically fit in order to reduce your risk for heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, cancer etc.
Untrue: The current guidelines recommend that each adult should accumulate 30 minutes (200 calories) or more of moderate-intensity physical activity on most, preferable all days of the week. Doing the activity in intermittent bouts as short as 5 -10 min is a suitable way of meeting the 30 minute goal. Moderate intensity activities include walking, gardening, housework, etc.

Myth 5: Individuals will not get a lot of health benefits from physical actively if they have been sedentary for a long period of time.
Untrue: It is never too late. The lower the baseline physical activity status, the greater will be the health benefit associated with a given increase in physical activity. The health benefits occur regardless of past history of bad habits.

Myth 6: I have a low risk for heart disease because I played competitive sport when I was young
Untrue: Individuals who previously participated in competitive sport and then become sedentary as adults have the same risk for heart disease later in life as individuals who remain sedentary. Only contemporary participation in physical activity confers health benefits.

Myth 7: Heart disease begins after age 40 years.
Untrue: Heart disease is a disease that is slow in its progress and long in its continuance. It begins early in the first decade of life. Individuals cross a threshold called a "clinical horizon" to manifest and be diagnosed with heart disease generally years after the original causes of the disease have taken effect. The mechanisms underlying the disease have usually been active long before a particular victim is outwardly affected. Unfortunately many of the children being born today will present with symptoms of heart disease at a much earlier stage in life than the current generation of adults.

Myth 8: Diabetes (a risk factor for heart disease) is a disease associated with obese middle age men and women
Untrue: In the US there has been a 10-fold increase in Type 2 diabetes between 1982 and 1994 in adolescents. A similar trend is starting to emerge in Ireland. Children will experience diabetic related conditions such as blindness, heart attacks, and strokes much earlier in life. The need to administer medical treatment to this subpopulation at such an early part in their lives will place a significant economic strain on our families and society. Ailments that have usually been thought only to affect individuals of middle age or older will now affect our children at a much earlier age, drastically decreasing their quality of life over a much longer period than previous generations. Our health care system is headed for deep trouble unless we soon find a way to implement better preventive measures against the progression of chronic diseases.

Myth 9: Gene mutations are responsible for the alarming increase in heart disease
Untrue: Only a small proportion of individuals with heart disease develop the disease primarily as a result of a single gene defect (e.g., familial hypercholesterolemia). Modern chronic diseases are highly dependent on the environment (physical inactivity, fat intake etc) and are not due to a new gene mutation. We are genetically programed to expect physical activity. Modern human beings inherited a genome that evolved within a physically active lifestyle. The current human genome expects and requires humans to be physically active for normal function and health maintenance.
A hunter-gatherer (nomadic) and perhaps equally active agrarian society dominated for most of the past 45,000 years. This has changed recently with the beginning of the industrial revolution, a little more than 100 years ago. Technological advances in modern society has engineered physical activity out of our lifestyles. Nomadic Indians in Peru have an average energy expenditure of 60 calories per kg of body weight per day compared with a value of 39 calories per kg of body weight per day for US men . This represents a staggering 35% decrease in individual energy turnover potentially resulting from industrialization of society.

Myth 10: Heart disease cannot be prevented
Untrue: Primary prevention involves the implementation of preventive strategies before the disease is clinically manifested - chronic disease will never reach its clinical horizon to compromise the health of an individual if it is attacked at its origin to delay and/or prevent its progression. Preventing a chronic disease in the first place is more humane and produces less suffering than treatment/secondary prevention of overt disease. It is also much less expensive to society in terms of health care costs. To practice primary prevention is considered common sense in other areas of society. For example, is it no less damaging and expensive for a car to undergo routine maintenance such as oil changes rather than to undergo an engine replacement after several years of neglect? Moreover, primary prevention has even been used successfully against nonchronic diseases. Polio and other infectious diseases have been virtually eliminated through the use of primary prevention methods (i.e., vaccination).