SARAH DI LORENZO: Helping your heart only takes a minute or two

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death globally as well the leading cause of death and disability in Australia.

We are all made well aware that smoking, sedentary lifestyle, poor diet, stress, obesity and poor lifestyle choices will drive heart disease.

We are also told to make sure we are doing a minimum of 180 minutes per week of cardiovascular exercise, nothing specific, just we are told we need to move and get our heart rate up and lower our risk of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) such as heart attack, stroke and heart failure.

Currently physical inactivity is a major public health issue responsible for contributing to around 20 per cent of cardiovascular disease.

It would be fair to say we are well aware of the importance of exercise for our health with gyms everywhere but they are only used by around 20 per cent of the middle-aged and older population.

There is some new and really interesting research from the University of Sydney finding you can significantly lower the risk of cardiovascular disease by doing up to 4 minutes a day of intense vigorous exercise.

So what does this exactly mean and how can we make this a part of our life?

It is as simple as taking the stairs instead of the lift and running up the stairs as fast as possible or going for a walk then sprinting or power walking as fast as possible in bursts.

You can also incorporate this into household chores and general daily activities.

Think about your environment, do you have a back yard where you can do some sprints in or a staircase at home you could run up and down.

You could do some star jumps on the spot, grab a skipping rope which you literally do anywhere or even a mini trampoline.

Think about setting a timer on your phone every 90 minutes and when that alarm goes off you could do some mountain climbers, squats or lunges or grab that skipping rope.

Where there is a will there is a way.

The research was remarkable finding that women in particular who were vigorously exercising three to four minutes a day had a lower risk of any type of MACE by 45 percent and specifically 51 per cent less likely to have a heart attack and 67 per cent lower risk for heart failure.

Even women in the study who did 1.2-1.6 minutes of vigorous exercise had a 40 per cent decreased risk of heart attack.

When looking at men, those who did 5 to 6 minutes each day with no other exercise had a 16 per cent reduced risk of MACE.

The guideline was to do the burst of exercise around 9 to 10 bursts per day of anywhere from 20 to 30 seconds up to 1 minute.

Vigorous exercise is aerobic and why it is good for our heart health is that it improves circulation which results in lowering blood pressure and heart rate. When we are exercising our heart beats a lot faster so that blood is pumped to all parts of our body.

Exercise helps lower resting heart rate and also improves blood flow back to the heart.

There has been a lot of research demonstrating the health benefits of HIIT or high intensity interval training on not only heart health but also respiratory health.

What is excellent about this research is it demonstrates how easy this is to incorporate into day to day life and given heart disease is the leading cause of morbidity mortality globally.

All this kind of research is so positive, looking at medication free alternatives and preventive medicine is the best medicine.

Plus exercise is an anti depressant, is so important for our general well being, weight loss, burning calories and mortality. It is medicine!