I think I would like to see more research done on this study to confirm the results, but it is still worthy of note.
Study finds walking slow increases heart disease risk
From correspondents in New York From: Reuters November 17, 2009 11:27AM
SLOW walking may not only mean getting to your destination later but it could also be taking its toll on your health, according to a French study.
Researchers from the Paris-based medical research institute Inserm found that older people who walk slowly are almost three times more likely to die of heart disease and related causes than older people who walk faster.
"The main message for the general population is that maintaining fitness at older age may have important consequences and help preserve life and (muscle) function," researcher Alexis Elbaz, director of research at Inserm, said.
He said the study, which appeared in the journal BMJ, also suggests that a test of walking speed might be used to test the health of elderly patients.
Previous studies had linked slow walking speed with increased risk of death over a given period, as well as with falls and other bad health outcomes, but hadn't shown whether it was heart disease or another cause that accounted for that higher risk.
The five-year study, part of Inserm's ongoing Three City Study, involved more than 3200 relatively fit men and women, aged 65 to 85, living in three French cities.
At the start of the study in 1999, the scientists assessed the health of each participant and clocked the participants' speeds as they walked down a corridor as fast as possible.
Over the next five years, 209 of the participants died - 99 from cancer, 59 from heart disease and 53 from infectious diseases and other causes - for an overall death rate of almost seven per cent.
The death rate among the slowest-walking one-third of participants - those men who walked at the equivalent of about 5.4km/h or slower and women who walked at about 4.8km/h or slower - was 44 per cent higher than that among the two-thirds of participants who had walked faster.
Death from heart attack, stroke, and related causes was 2.9 times more common among the slowest one-third of participants than among the participants who had walked faster.
The increase in death from heart disease was seen in both men and women and was unrelated to the ages of participants or how physically active they were.
The researchers found no connection between walking speed and other causes of death, including cancer.
Mr Elbaz said one possibility for the result was that the same risk factors that raises heart disease risk - high blood pressure and diabetes - also causes "silent strokes" that make it hard to walk fast.
This idea "deserves additional studies to be confirmed," he said.
Cheers
