How climbing stairs can benefit heart health

ISLAMABAD: Climbing stairs regularly may significantly reduce your risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease , and of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in general, a new study suggests.

The study finds that people who climbed 50 stairs over the course of a day reduced their risk of cardiovascular disease by 20 percent compared to people who did not climb any stairs daily.

While the study focused primarily on atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseaseTrusted Source (ASCVD) — which includes stroke, heart attacks, and blood clots — its conclusions apply to CVD in general, according to its corresponding author.

Climbing stairs is a kind of vigorous exercise which has shown benefits on lowering various risk factors for heart disease.

Climbing stairs may help inlowering body weight, improving metabolic status and inflammation, and reducing other diseases which may increase the risk of heart disease, such as diabetes.”

Compared to, say, brisk walking, Dr. Cheng-Han Chen, medical director of the Structural Heart Program at Saddleback Medical Center in Laguna Hills, California, who was not involved in the study said, “It’s basically [a]n enhanced form of aerobic exercise because not only do you get the motion — the movement that you get from the walk — you actually engage other muscle groups.”

“As you can imagine, walking up stairs is harder exercise than walking on level ground. That’s because not only are you moving your body, you’re moving it against gravity, and you’re basically pushing yourself up and out, right? You’re actually building your muscles in your lower body, but you’re also building muscle in your core, in your lower back,” Dr. Chen explained.

The painstaking posture care

“Because [climbing stairs is] harder, you’re doing more exercise, and more exercise is better for you. We think that [climbing] stairs actually gives you three times as much exercise as the same amount of time walking on the ground.”

Dr. Chen suspected that the speed at which one mounts the stairs may matter in that going faster means more of a workout.

However, stair-climbing is not the only form of exercise one can do to improve and maintain their health. Dr. Chen expressed concern about not discouraging anyone from doing what they can. He pointed out that joint problems can get in the way of going up 50 stairs or many at all.

“I don’t want to dissuade people from walking on level ground because even walking on level ground is great. [A]ny exercise is better than no exercise,” he told MNT.

“If someone’s reading an article, and like, ‘Oh, boy, you know, they want us to run up the stairs, and I’m 75 years old, and my joints hurt. I’m just not going to do it. I can’t exercise at all.’ Going upstairs is probably better than walking, but definitely walking is better than sitting on the sofa,” concluded Dr. Chen.