Waltzing
Your Way to a Stronger Heart
Why walk your way to better heart health when you can waltz?
That is the question posed by researchers who have found
that waltzing improves heart function and quality of life among chronic heart
failure patients.
The benefits appear at least as great, and sometimes greater,
than the benefits gained from more traditional aerobic exercise, say researchers
who presented their findings at the annual meeting for the American
Heart Association.
"Why not?" says Dr. Louis E. Teichholz, division director
of cardiology at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey. "The important
thing about exercise is that you have aerobic exercise, and certainly this
is good aerobic exercise, especially a waltz, where you're constantly moving."
Adds
Dr. Robert Myerburg, a professor of medicine at the University of Miami: "For
the person with heart disease, this might be a good way to do exercise to
their level
of tolerance, and it would be enjoyable for
them.
“You could adjust the form of dance you're doing for
the person who is mildly limited because of heart disease," says Dr. Myerburg.
Explaining
the rationale for the research, lead author Dr. Romualdo Belardinelli says, "The
problem is that sometimes the adherence of cardiac patients to exercise training
programs is not very high, so we have
to find something that may capture their interest.
"Waltz dancing improves functional capacity and quality
of life for chronic heart failure patients without important side effects,” he
says. “It may be considered in combination [with] or as an alternative
to exercise training in these patients.”
In a previous study by the same researchers at Lancisi Heart
Institute in Ancona, Italy, it was discovered that slow and fast waltzes were
safe and effective forms of exercise for people who suffered from heart disease
and previous heart attacks.
This time, the investigators basically repeated that first
study in 110 individuals with chronic heart failure, 89 of them men, with an
average age of 59.
The study participants were randomly assigned to do traditional
aerobic exercise, including cycling and treadmills, three times a week for
eight weeks, or to do a dance program that alternated slow waltzes (five minutes)
and fast waltzes (three minutes) for a total of 21 minutes.
The dance sessions were also performed three times a week
for eight weeks. A third group did not exercise and served as a control group.
Dancing improved both functional capacity of the heart and
quality of life, especially in the area of emotions. There was no improvement
at all in these areas among patients who did not exercise.
Cardiopulmonary fitness increased at similar rates in the
routine aerobic group and in the dance group, with dancers experiencing slightly
greater benefits.
Among the aerobic exercisers, oxygen consumption increased
16 percent, compared to 18 percent for the dancers.
Anaerobic threshold, or the point above which muscles start
to tire, increased 20 percent among exercisers and 21 percent among dancers.
And, cardiocirculatory fitness increased 18 percent among
the exercisers and 19 percent among the dancers.
Persons in the dancing group also saw improved elasticity
in their arteries.
Finally, quality of life improved more in the dancing group
than in the exercise group.
And dancing was safe; no one had to withdraw from the program.
"I don't think you could say this is better than good aerobic
exercise," adds Dr. Teichholz. "The major difference is people were happier
doing it.
"In people with heart failure and in normal people, we need
to think that exercise can take various forms, and dancing certainly in this
study is shown not to be deleterious and actually to be helpful," he says.
Always consult your physician for more information.
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