Too much exercise may speed heart failure

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Though exercise can be a key part of managing high blood pressure and heart disease, new animal research suggests there can be too much of a good thing.

In experiments with rats, researchers found that excessive exercise worsened high blood pressure and progression to heart failure in rats with high blood pressure.

Dr. Rebecca L. Schultz and colleagues at the University of South Dakota, Sioux Falls, report the results in the journal Hypertension.

Regular physical activity has been linked to a lower risk of heart disease in numerous studies. Moreover, exercise therapy has been shown to improve both blood pressure and symptoms of heart failure — a chronic condition in which the heart loses its ability to pump blood efficiently, causing symptoms like breathlessness and fatigue.