CLIMBING a flight of stairs at home is just as good as a gym class when it comes to warding off a heart attack, scientists have found.

Professor Maureen MacDonald, from McMaster University in Canada and her team of researchers found that walking up 18 steps had the same benefits for the heart as a 45-minute aerobic class. “We’ve shown stair-climbing is a safe, efficient and feasible option for cardiac rehabilitation, which was particularly relevant during the pandemic when many people didn’t have the option to exercise in a gym,” says MacDonald.

A 2019 study from the British Heart Foundation (BHF) found that the number of under-75s dying of heart disease has risen for the first time in 50 years.

“What we’re talking about here is adults under the age of 65 — working age adults — dying of heart disease,” says Ashleigh Li, a senior cardiac nurse at the BHF.

The study found that our increasingly sedentary lifestyles, and soaring rates of obesity and diabetes are pushing up the figures among younger people.

“Heart disease used to be thought of as an old person’s disease, and older men at that,” says Li. “But what this study shows is that younger people, including women, are at risk.”

“Early on in my career I was taught that to look after your heart is to look after your overall health, and this should start as young as possible.” says Maureen Talbot, another cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation.

In 2019, then-Health Secretary Matt Hancock said he kept fit by walking up the nine flights of stairs to his Department of Health’s office to keep fit — and calculated he was climbing around 10,000 steps a month and felt less out of breath as a result.

A paper in the European Journal of Applied Physiology found that subjects who regularly did just three short 20-second sprints on an indoor bike enjoyed a 9 percent gain in cardiorespiratory fitness. Another paper in Experimental Physiology found that even short walks can reverse the vascular dysfunction — such as reduced blood flow and increased stress on the artery walls — caused by extended periods sitting down. Simply taking the stairs a few times a day can protect your body from the risks of a sedentary lifestyle and ensure you live a longer and healthier life.

“It’s also easy to eat a heart-friendly diet,” says Talbot. “Studies show a healthy Mediterranean diet is the most heart-protective, so focus on mono-unsaturated fats like olive oil, oily fish, fruits, vegetables, wholegrain, a little dairy, a little bit of meat.”

Other heart-friendly foods include asparagus, legumes (beans, peas, lentils, chickpeas and so on) and flaxseed. Dark red or purple berries are also very heart-protective, because they contain antioxidants that can lower your risk of heart disease.

Having solid social support has emerged as one of the biggest protectors of health.

One study, published in the health journal Heart, found people who are socially isolated are also more likely to have a heart attack or stroke and have an increased risk of dying from heart disease. (SD-Agencies)