Association between Exercise and Risk of Cardiovascular Disease- Specific Hospitalization among Heart Failure Patients

The dramatic increase in heart failure incidence in recent decades is reflected in the significantly higher rates of heart failure-related hospitalizations. Modifiable risk factors that may influence hospitalization rates are important to consider as hospitalizations may be a measure of disease prognosis in disease management. This study used a cohort from the Adventist Health Study-2 to investigate the associations between aerobic exercise and hospitalization risk among subjects with prevalent heart failure. Of the 917 subjects who identified themselves as being diagnosed by a physician with heart failure at baseline in 2002, 637 subjects returned a questionnaire on hospitalizations two years after enrollment. Data on frequency, distance, duration and time spent walking and running was collected at baseline and was combined into indices signifying none, low and medium/high levels of exercise. Logistic regression was used to assess the risk of both all-cause hospitalization and cardiovascular-specific hospitalization. In multivariate analysis, low levels of exercise was associated with less hospitalizations for any cause when compared to a zero exercise level (odds ratio (OR) =0.519 (95% Confidence Intervals (CI) 0.327-0.823). Low levels of exercise was also protective of cardiovascular-specific hospitalization when compared to no exercise (OR= 0.566, 95% CI 0.323-0.989). The medium/high level of exercise was protective against both hospitalization endpoints but did not reach statistical significance. Our findings suggest that exercise may be beneficial in preventing future heart failure-related hospitalizations among heart failure patients.