text_1: Proper exercise can reverse damage from heart aging
text_2: Getty Images This news release describes a small study (~50 subjects) from UT Southwestern Medical Center showing that fairly aggressive and regular exercise in sedentary, middle-aged individuals can marginally increase maximum oxygen uptake and moderately improve the elasticity of the main pumping chamber of the heart (left ventricle). Although the news release does a good job outlining the prescribed exercise regime, it makes unwarranted and confusing claims about reversing damage from “heart aging,” and suggesting the findings might “help prevent risk of future heart failure.” This language is not justified. The research can’t tell us if risk for heart failure has been reduced in these study participants. Nor does it establish what is meant by “heart aging” and how that has been “reversed” by the intervention. The news release would have been markedly improved if such terms had been dropped, and focused more on what is — and is not known — about poor fitness as a risk factor for heart failure. Cardiovascular health is a major health issue for middle-aged people and their health care providers. It makes research like this very interesting for readers, and we believe that places a premium on clear language. This study had little to do with “heart aging” or even heart failure. So using such language in both the news release title, as well as the opening paragraph, sets up readers to be misguided and misinformed.