Survival of the Fittest

No surprise here. In a survey of 33 studies Japanese investigators demonstrated that those with higher cardiorespiratory fitness levels had significantly better survival and cardiovascular event rates than those in a low fitness category. Cardiorespiratory fitness is essentially a measure of exercise capacity. Unfortunately, exercise capacity is rarely taken into consideration by health care providers when assessing individual risk for cardiovascular death and disease. The good news is that cardiorespiratory fitness is a modifiable risk factor (i.e. it can be improved). In addition, even a modest increase in fitness level was associated a significantly improved risk profile.