Regular strength training combined with exercise lowers heart disease and heart attack risk in women.
Women who regularly lift weights may lower their chances of developing serious heart disease, especially when strength training is combined with aerobic exercise, according to a new study, published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, involving more than 117,000 women in the United States. The research followed participants from two long-running health studies and found that women who performed resistance training for at least two hours each week had a lower risk of major cardiovascular problems and heart attacks than women who did no strength training at all.
Heart disease remains the leading cause of death worldwide, and doctors have long encouraged engaging in physical activities such as walking, running, cycling and swimming to help protect the heart. Strength training, which includes exercises using free weights, resistance bands, weight machines or even one’s own body weight, has become more popular in recent years, but its effect on heart health has been less clear until now.
Researchers wanted to learn whether lifting weights could boost the heart benefits individuals gain from aerobic exercise. To answer that question, they analyzed information from the Nurses’ Health Study and Nurses’ Health Study II, two large projects that have tracked the health habits of female healthcare workers for many years.
The first group the team referenced had an average age of nearly 67 at the start of the study, while the second group averaged about 48 years old. Participants in both regularly reported how much resistance training they were doing, how often they engaged in aerobic exercises and how much time they spent watching television, used as a measure of sedentary behavior. The study tracked major cardiovascular events that occurred among the participants in both studies, including fatal and nonfatal heart attacks, strokes and procedures used to restore blood flow to the heart.
The findings were significant. Women who completed two or more hours of resistance training each week were found to have a 20 percent lower risk of major cardiovascular disease compared with women who did not perform strength training. The benefit was even greater when looking specifically at heart attacks. Those who lifted weights for at least two hours weekly had a 44 percent lower risk of experiencing a heart attack. Researchers also found that every additional hour of resistance training performed each week was linked to a 5 percent reduction in the risk of major cardiovascular disease and a 14 percent reduction in heart attack risk. What’s more, this protective effect remained even after researchers accounted for body weight and health conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol.
The greatest benefits appeared among women who combined different healthy habits. Participants who performed at least 150 minutes of aerobic exercise each week and also completed two or more hours of resistance training saw a 45 percent lower risk of heart attack compared with women who did not exercise. The findings suggest that heart health is influenced by an overall lifestyle that includes staying active in different ways and reducing time spent sitting for long periods of time. The study’s lead author, Dr. Tianyue Zhang of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, confirmed that resistance training appears to provide benefits beyond aerobic exercise alone and may deserve a larger role in public health efforts to prevent heart disease in women. Dr. Harlan Krumholz, editor-in-chief of the journal, adding that the findings provide more support for including strength training as part of a balanced routine designed to improve health and extend one’s lifespan.
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Resistance training reduces major heart disease risk for active women
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