People who
engage in physical activity only once in a while -- and that includes sex --
have a higher risk of suffering a heart attack or sudden cardiac death, at
least in the one or two hours right after they've exerted themselves, experts
say.
But in another
nod for exercise, the more physical activity you engage in, sexual or
otherwise, the more protected you are against such problems, according to a
study in the March 23/30 issue of the Journal of the American Medical
Association.
"The
triggering effect appeared to be sharpest for people unaccustomed to physical
activity," said study senior author Jessica K. Paulus, an assistant
professor of medicine at Harvard School of Public Health and an adjunct
assistant professor of epidemiology at Tufts Medical Center, in Boston.
"The recommendation from our paper is consistent with current guidelines,
that those looking to initiate an exercise program, especially those at higher
risk, do so very gradually and under the care of a clinician or
physician."
Certainly
previous studies have looked at this issue, but most of those had been unable
to pinpoint issues of timing, said study author Dr. Issa J. Dahabreh, a
research associate with the Center for Clinical Evidence Synthesis, Institute
for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies at Tufts.
This
meta-analysis took the weighted average of 14 other studies to determine that
people who engaged in "episodic" sexual activity had a 2.7 times
higher risk for a heart attack while sporadic physical activity raised the risk
3.5-fold.
Occasional
physical activity raised the risk of sudden cardiac death fivefold, but overall
risk was low largely because people engaged in these activities so infrequently
and the risk went away so quickly.
"The actual
incidence is extremely small. You're talking two-to-three events per 10,000
patient-years. That's very, very small," said Dr. Christopher Cove, an
associate professor of medicine and assistant director of the cardiac
catheterization lab at the University of Rochester Medical Center.
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