The majority of Americans with coronary heart disease do not engage in physical activity at recommended levels, study findings suggest.

National guidelines generally call for a minimum of 30 minutes of moderate physical activity on at least 5 days each week, as well as 20 or more minutes of vigorous activity on at least 3 days per week.

Moderate activity includes brisk walking, bicycling, vacuuming, gardening, or any other exercise or work that causes small increases in breathing or heart rate. Vigorous activity such running, aerobics, or heavy yard work involves large increases in breathing or heart rate.

Despite the known health benefits of physical activity, a survey of nearly 300,000 adults in the United States shows that those with coronary heart disease are less likely to comply with physical activity recommendations than those without heart disease, researchers report in the American Journal of Cardiology.

Dr. Guixiang Zhao, of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in Atlanta, Georgia, and colleagues compared levels of physical activity reported by 24,496 adults with and 272,649 adults without coronary heart disease who participated in the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System telephone survey in 2005.

The investigators found that just 32 percent of those with coronary heart disease engaged in recommended levels of moderate activity and only 22 percent achieved recommended amounts of vigorous physical activity.

By contrast, 37 percent and 29 percent of individuals without coronary heart met recommended levels of moderate and vigorous physical activity.

“Intensive physical activity counseling is needed for patients with coronary heart disease to increase their physical activity levels if no contraindications to increased physical activity exist,” the team concludes. .

SOURCE: American Journal of Cardiology, March 2008