Are you doing more than 11 push-ups in one minute, if not read this…………?

In less than 10 minutes you can gauge your risk of a heart disease or a cardiac event by doing this exercise. According to a NIH study peer reviewed by researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, there is an amazingly accurate marker that can predict a 96% lower risk of a cardiovascular disease event. Men who were able to complete more than 40 consecutive push-ups had a 96% reduction in the incident of CVD events compared with those completing fewer than 10 push-ups. Even being able to perform 11 or more push-ups at baseline had significantly reduced risk of subsequent CVD events.

Unfortunately, the study was conducted on a group of male active and employed firefighters only. Still, this is good news if you are reasonably active and able to do more than 11 consecutive push ups your CDV risk is already lower than men who cant.

According to the study, participants had to do the push ups in time with a metronome set at 80 beats per minute. Clinic staff counted the number of push-ups completed until the participant reached 80, missed 3 or more beats of the metronome, or stopped owing to exhaustion or other symptoms (dizziness, lightheadedness, chest pain, or shortness of breath).You need to be able to complete all 41 push ups in just over 60 seconds.

Reduce your sedentary behavior by one hour a day

A new study has found that the longer older women sit or lay down during the day—and the longer the individual periods of uninterrupted sitting—the greater their risk of cardiovascular diseases such as heart disease and stroke. But reducing their sedentary time by just an hour a day appears to lower the risk of cardiovascular diseases by 12 percent—and for heart disease alone, by a dramatic 26 percent, the research found. The study was funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), part of the National Institutes of Health.

In this five-year prospective study, researchers looked at more than 5,000 women ages 63 to 97 and measured both the total time they sat or laid down each day and the duration of discrete sedentary periods. The results, published today in the journal Circulation, are significant.

The research involved an ethnically diverse group of 5,638 women, nearly half of whom were over age 80, enrolled between 2012 and 2014. None had a history of myocardial infarction or stroke. The women were part of the NHLBI-funded Objective Physical Activity and Cardiovascular Health (OPACH)—a sub cohort of the Women’s Health Initiative.

The researchers followed the participants for almost five years, tracking cardiovascular disease events such as heart attacks and strokes. They found that on average, an additional hour of total sedentary time was associated with a 12 percent higher risk for cardiovascular diseases, and when that sitting time was made up of long uninterrupted sedentary sessions, the risk was 52 percent higher than when it was accumulated in short, regularly interrupted bouts of sedentary time.

Echocardiography guided CPR

Point-of-care ultrasonography provides diagnostic information in addition to visual pulse checks during cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

The most commonly used modality, transthoracic echocardiography is associated with prolonged pauses in chest compressions, which correlate with worsened neurologic outcomes. Unlike transthoracic echocardiography, transesophageal echocardiography does not require cessation of compressions for adequate imaging and provides the diagnostic benefit of point-of-care ultrasonography.

In a study researchers analyzed 139 pulse check CPR pauses among 25 patients during cardiac arrest. Transesophageal echocardiography provided the shortest mean pulse check duration (9 seconds). Mean pulse check duration with transthoracic echocardiography was 19 seconds, and it was 11 seconds with manual checks. 

The study suggests that pulse check times with transesophageal echocardiography are shorter versus with transthoracic echocardiography for ED point-of-care ultrasonography during cardiac arrest resuscitations, and further emphasizes the need for careful attention to compression pause duration when using transthoracic echocardiography for point-of-care ultrasonography during ED cardiac arrest resuscitations. (Annals of Emergency Medicine — Fair J, et al. | February 20, 2019)

The study again indicates the need for the PC PNDT act to treat point of care echo differently than obstetric ultrasounds.