# Lower your heart rate and live longer



## Arnold (May 22, 2012)

*Lower your heart rate and live longer*

If you take regular exercise that causes your heartbeat to go up, then the rest of the day your heart rate is lower. That's logical: a trained heart doesn't have to work so hard when resting. An advantage of a well-functioning heart is that it probably protects against cancer, going by a study published in PloS One by researchers at the University Paris Descartes.

Scores of studies have shown that a slow heartbeat is a sign of cardiovascular health, and that people with a lower heart rate are less likely to die from cardiovascular disease. This is a known fact. That a lower heart rate protects against cancer is not.

That we've never heard anything about this is because scientists are not so sure what to do with phenomena that they can't explain. If they're confident, they publish these findings, but they often just ignore these troublesome facts. The Americans did publish, but explained the correlation away. They came up with the theory that people who have cancer but don't know it have a higher heartbeat. [Am J Epidemiol. 1981 Oct;114(4):477-87.]

The explanation didn't entirely hold water. In a follow-up study many years later, the same group of Americans dug up the relationship. [Am J Epidemiol. 1999 May 1; 149(9): 853-62.] You'd have expected that all hitherto unknown forms of cancer had been uncovered in the meantime. Indeed, researchers in France [J Clin Epidemiol. 2001 Jul; 54(7): 735-40.] and Israel [Eur Heart J. 2000 Jan; 21(2): 116-24.] had in the meantime also come across the cancer inhibiting effect of a lower heart rate.

The researchers at the University Paris Descartes used data from over six thousand men aged between 42 and 53. The data were gathered during the first Paris Prospective Study, in which Parisian men were followed for twenty-five years.

This study also showed that a lower heart rate extended life expectancy. The researchers divided the men into 4 groups according to their heart rate. Of the group with the lowest resting heart rate, almost 90 percent were still alive after 25 years, as can be seen in the first figure below. The survival rate of the group with the highest heart rate was 70 percent.

The second figure shows that a slow heartbeat during exertion reduces the risk of dying from a cardiovascular cause.

















The most interesting figure is the one above. The slower the heartbeat during exertion, the lower the risk of dying from cancer.

The researchers found a similar relationship between resting heart rate and fatal cancer. In the group with the slowest heart rate, the chance of developing cancer was 2.4 times less than in the group with the highest heart rate.

The researchers put forward the theory that people with a higher heart rate have an overactive sympathetic nervous system. The sympathetic nervous system is the part of the central nervous system that makes organs work harder. [Another part of the CNS, the parasympathetic nervous system, slows down organs' metabolisme.] "Subjects with pre-existing disturbance of their autonomic system may have a lower immunity defense system and an increased risk of dying if the individual develops cancer", the researchers write.

If the theory holds water, then people can probably reduce their chance of developing cancer by becoming fitter.

Source: 
Heart rate and risk of cancer death in healthy men. [PLoS One. 2011] - PubMed - NCBI


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## ebn2002 (May 22, 2012)

You ever see a really old guy thats tall or fat?  Me neither.


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## freddym (May 22, 2012)

ever see an old bodybuilder?


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## squigader (May 26, 2012)

freddym said:


> ever see an old bodybuilder?







First winner of the Mr. Olympia almost 50 years ago (1965). This is him at 70 years old.






Jack Lalanne who died recently at the young age of 96.


Of course, these guys weren't on 10 different types of juice, hormones, and insulin.


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## exphys88 (May 28, 2012)

One of the best predictors of longevity is vo2max.  The longer you can stay on a TM during a stress test, the longer you'll live.  A bigger vo2max=lower resting HR.  

I hate to break it to you guys but strength training will not provide the same cardiovascular benefits that aerobic exercise will.  If you care about your health and living long, you'll engage in some type of cardio training.


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## freddym (May 28, 2012)

aged dead bodybuilders		Mike Mentzer died 2001 age 49 *heart complications*
Ray Mentzer died 2001 age 47 *Berger's disease(build-up of cholesterol plaques in the arteries), endocarditis (an infection of the lining of the heart)*
Ron Teufel died 2002 age 45 *liver failure*
Scott Klein died 2003 age 30 *reportedly kidney failure and also suicide*
Sonny Schmidt died 2004 age 51 *cancer*
Robert Benavente 2004 age 30 *massive heart attack*
Charles Durr 2005 age 44 *enlarged heart*
Don Youngblood 2005 age 51 *massive heart attack*
Paul Demayo 2005 age 38 *heroin overdose*
Fannie Barrios 2005 age 41 (female) *apparent stroke*
Eric Otero 2006 age 37 *infection in his tooth that entered his bloodstream*
Eduardo Kawak 2006 age 47 *heart attack*
Rob Sager 2007 age 29 *HEART FAILURE*
Greg Deferro 2007 age 53 *heart disease*
Dan Puckett 2007 age 22 *heart condition*
Shelley Beattie 2008 age 39 (female) *depression for six weeks before she hung herself*
Joe Meeko 2009 age 48 *Lyme disease*
Luke Wood 2011 age 35 *kidney failure and heart failure*
Carlos Rodriguez 1991 age 48 *stomach cancer *
Mohammed Benaziza 1992 age 33 *he took an injection of clenbuterol*
Ray McNeil 1995 age 29 *killed by his wife*
Andreas Münzer 1996 age 31 *liver and then kidneys failed*
Johnny Fuller 2006 age 62 *cancer*
Wilfred Sylvester 2006 age 62 *alzheimers*
Derrick Whitsett 2004 age 38 *heart attack*
Trevor Smith 2004 age 33 *No official cause but he was 400lbs 6ft 1"*
Curtis Leffler 1998 age 36 *heart attack*
Hans Hopstaken 2002 age 45 *unspecified heart condition, or pnuemonia*
Art Atwood 2011 age 38 *heart attack*
Bj johns 1995-1996? age 34 New Zealand *Heart attack*
lou barrie 2001 age 40 *died instantly after a massive heart*
Claudia Bianchi 2004 age 34 *blocked arteries*
Big Boss Man' Ray Traylor 2004 age 41 *heart attack*
Marianna Komlos 2004 age 35 *breast cancer*
Luke Iams 2003 age unsure 40's *heart attack*
Anthony Clark 2005 age 39 *massive heart attack*
Mannie Hamilton 2005 age 62 *heart attack*
Roger Estep 2005 *brain cancer*
John Riggins 2005 age 33 *kidneys failed, liver stopped functioning, lungs filling up with fluid and he has pneumonia*
John Ware 2005 Age 46 (former PLer; current football coach) *heart attack*
Doug Young, 2005 age 61, powerlifter *massive heart attack*
Norm Dabish, 2005 age 46, Co-founder of Powerhouse Gyms. *heart attack*
Herb Glossbrenner, 2005 age 63, *suffers stoke*
Steve Courson 2005 Steroid whistle blowers for the NFL Steve Courson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia *crushed to death*
Eddie Guerrero, 2005 age 38. *acute heart failure due to arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease* (*artery wall thickens as a result of the accumulation of fatty materials such as cholesterol)*
Hans Ossner, 2006 age 64 *cancer*
Dave Barno, 2006 age 35 *dead lifting while back was broken*
Russ Knipp 2006 age 63 *heart attack *​


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## ~RaZr~ (May 28, 2012)

exphys88 said:


> I hate to break it to you guys but strength training will not provide the same cardiovascular benefits that aerobic exercise will.  If you care about your health and living long, you'll engage in some type of cardio training.



Good point 
For those who are drunk right now ----> Cardio workout = Cardiocascular workout.


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## MuscleGauge1 (May 28, 2012)

squigader said:


> First winner of the Mr. Olympia almost 50 years ago (1965). This is him at 70 years old.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Jack Lalanne. The living legend


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