If you have ever needed an excuse to get out of exercising, science may have your back.
That’s because research has revealed that white men who work out at least 7.5 hours a week are nearly twice as likely to suffer from heart disease.
That is compared to those who exercise a moderate amount so you may want to cancel those gym plans tonight.
The study, which was conducted by a team of scientists from the University of Illinois in Chicago and Kaiser Permanente, looked at exercise patterns over the course of 25 years surveying 3,175 people.
They found very active white men are 86 per cent more likely to have a build-up of plaque in their heart arteries by the time they reached middle age.
But this was not the case for black men.
The high levels of exercise over time puts stress on the arteries and can lead to what is called CAC, higher coronary artery calcification.
This is a warning sign that you may be at risk of developing heart disease and may need to consider early preventive care.
But that doesn’t mean you should put down the weights yet…
Study co-author Dr Jamal Rana, a cardiologist at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland said:
High levels of exercise over time may cause stress on the arteries leading to higher CAC.
However this plaque buildup may well be of the more stable kind, and thus less likely to rupture and causes heart attack, which was not evaluated in this study.
It does not suggest that anyone should stop exercising.
Damn it!
These people were split into three groups based on their physical activity patterns.
Group one exercised below the national guidelines of less than 150 minutes a week, group two met these guidelines and group three exercised three times above the national guidelines, over 450 minutes a week.
Those in the last group were 27 per cent more likely than those in the first group to develop CAC by middle age.
The study also found that white men were at the highest risk being 86 per cent more likely to have CAC.
There were no higher odds of CAC for black participants in group three.
Although there was a similar trend for white women, it was not statistically significant.
