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Guidelines

Is 8 Minutes of Exercise Enough?

A mere eight minutes of exercise a day – 54 minutes a week – is enough to lower the risk of early death and heart disease. 

In a study published in the European Heart Journal, scientists examined data from fitness trackers worn by nearly 72k people in the UK. After a 6-year mean follow-up, researchers found that eight minutes of vigorous physical activity a day lowered the risk of early death by 36%, and the risk of CVD by 35%. 

Here’s a sample of how different weekly exercise lengths correlated with mortality and cardiovascular disease incidents : 

• 15 minutes/week → 16-18% lower all-cause mortality
• 20 minutes/week → 40% lower CVD mortality
• Further beneficial associations observed for up to 50-57 minutes per week. 

The people who exercised even more saw greater improvements, but the protective effects of vigorous exercise began to plateau around 54 minutes. 

The Takeaway

The CDC recommends at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise each week. But still, a majority of Americans fail to meet these guidelines. Perhaps aiming for eight minutes of intense movement each day may help make exercise more accessible and achievable.

It’s hard to keep up with all the data pertaining to optimal exercise routines for health and longevity. But all studies seem to agree that getting your body moving – even for just a handful of minutes – has life-changing effects. 

A New Standard of Heart Care

Open to a more personalized and proactive approach to cardiovascular care? Check out this video detailing Cleerly’s unique approach to heart disease risk assessments and care.

Automating the Fight Against Heart Disease

See how Dr. Carolyn Lam evolved from a women’s heart health trailblazer to co-founding Us2.ai and automating the fight against heart disease.

The Wire

• Nudging Clinicians to Improve CV Care: Under one-half of US individuals who meet statin guideline criteria are actively prescribed the medication. A new study in JAMA Cardiology investigated how best to increase statin initiation: Is it more effective to nudge the physician, patient, or both? In the 4k-patient study, nudging clinicians alone or both clinicians and patients did significantly increase statin prescribing (5.5% and 7.2%). The patient nudge alone was not effective. 

• Boston Scientific’s ACURATE neo2: Boston Scientific’s ACURATE neo2 aortic valve system sported a high procedural success rate and low mortality and paravalvular leaks (PVL), suggests a post-market study shared at the PCR London Valves 2022 conference. Among 250 patients, the procedure success rate was 98.4%, and 30-day mortality and stroke were just 0.8% and 0%. At 30 days post-TAVR, 79.2% of patients had no/trace PVL, 18.9% had mild PVL, and 1.9% had moderate PVL. 

• Edwards’ Evoque System Safe & Effective: Edwards Lifesciences also shared positive findings at PCR London Valves, reporting one-year safety and efficacy data of its Evoque TAVR system for patients with tricuspid regurgitation. Among the 176 patients enrolled in the study, survival was 90% and freedom from heart failure hospitalization was 88.4%. Ninety-seven percent of patients saw sustained TR reduction and consistent improvements in cardiomyopathy questionnaire scores. 

• Managing Nuisance Bleeding: For patients who had acute MI and now experience “nuisance bleeds,”  – which usually manifest as bleeding gums, easy bruising, and shaving knicks that gush – de-escalating dual antiplatelet treatment (DAPT) may improve outcomes. Researchers found that ticagrelor-based DAPT patients who experienced nuisance bleeds were at increased risk of BARC 2, 3, or 5 bleeding and MACE at six months. De-escalation from ticagrelor-based DAPT to clopidogrel reduced the incidence of bleeding, without increasing MACE risk.      

• Medtronic Improves Evolut System: Medtronic reports significant improvement in its newest generation TAVR system, Evolut FX. The company presented data at PCR London showing that the Evolut FX’s redesigned delivery system improved commissure alignment during TAVR procedures compared to its predecessors.

• Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest Smartphone Initiative: Researchers wanted to know if alerting volunteer responders through a smartphone app that gave instructions to the nearest available public AED would increase AED utilization. Among the 947 cardiac arrest patients examined, the smartphone application did not influence AED utilization rates. The authors note that high baseline AED attachment rate may explain why the difference was not significant.

• BIOTRONIK vs. Medtronic’s Balloon: A head-to-head comparison of BIOTRONIK’s Passeo-18 Lux drug-coated balloon (DCB) and Medtronic’s In.Pact Admiral DCB suggests that the balloons are equally safe and effective. In the study, 302 patients with lesions in the femoropopliteal artery received either BIOTRONIK or Medtronic’s DCB. At 12 months post-TAVR, there was no difference in the primary efficacy endpoint (target lesion revascularization rates) or the primary safety endpoint (a composite of procedure-related death, limb amputation, and target vessel revascularization rates). 

• Additional Rivaroxaban for Distal DVT: Six additional weeks of rivaroxaban after a 6 week uneventful period of anticoagulation effectively reduced the risk of recurrent thrombosis in patients with isolated distal DVT. In the double-blind study, 402 patients received either additional rivaroxaban 20 mg daily or placebo for six weeks. At a two year follow-up, patients who received additional rivaroxaban showed lower rates of recurrent thrombosis (11.5% vs. 19.3%), with no additional bleeding risk.  

• Celebrity Attention Leads to Semaglutide Shortage: Stories of celebrities using the diabetes and obesity drug semaglutide off-label for weight loss has caused an explosion of interest in the medication. Now people with diabetes – who need the drug to manage their disease – are having trouble finding it. The FDA’s recent drug shortages report revealed that starter doses of semaglutide (Ozempic) will have limited availability through January.

• Viz.ai & Illuminate’s Aortic Alliance: Viz.ai brought its AI platform further beyond imaging, announcing a partnership with Illuminate to add patient records-based aortic aneurysm detection and monitoring. Illuminate uses NLP and AI to screen EHR data and radiology reports for signs of aortic aneurysm, and then assesses disease severity and facilitates follow-up surveillance. Illuminate joins Viz.ai’s CT-based Aortic AI module to create a uniquely comprehensive aortic aneurysm solution. 

User Experience and Cardiovascular Imaging Transformation

Check out this Change Healthcare video discussing the importance of user experience in the adoption of structured reporting, and how it can lead to improvements in imaging speed, quality, and cardiologist workflow. 

The HeartFlow Story

Shifting the standard of care is a monumental undertaking, and yet physicians across the globe are embracing HeartFlow’s FFRct Analysis. Hear from the co-founder how HeartFlow got its start, and why physicians love it.