Test Your Heart Health By Climbing Stairs

Climbing four flights of stairs in less than a minute indicates good heart health, according to research presented at EACVI — Best of Imaging 2020, a scientific congress of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).

If it takes you more than one and a half minutes to ascend four flights of stairs, then you should consult a doctor. “The stairs test is an easy way to check your heart health,” said study author Dr. Jesús Peteiro, a cardiologist at University Hospital A Coruña, Spain.

This experiment was conducted to study how the daily activities, like climbing stairs, are related to our health.” The idea was to find a simple and inexpensive method of assessing heart health. This can help physicians triage patients for more extensive examinations.” said Dr Peteiro

One hundred sixty-five symptomatic patients were observed in this experiment. Some of them had symptoms, including chest pain, shortness of breath during exercise.

They ran on treadmills, walked for long distances until they got exhausted. Their exercise capacity was measured as metabolic equivalents (METs).

After resting for 15-20 minutes, they were asked to climb four flights of stairs (about 60 stairs) at a fast pace. They were asked not to run, and the time was recorded.

Then the researchers compared the time taken for exercise and climbing of stairs and analyzed the relationship between METs. Patients climbing the stairs in less than 40-45 sec got more than 9 METs.

In previous studies, it is observed that the mortality rate of people having 10 METs was low. That was about 1% or less per year.

On the other hand, people who took more than 1.5 min to climb the stairs got less than 8 METs. Their mortality rate was a little high compared to about 2-4% per year.

In the treadmill test, researchers took images of the heart to study its function during exercise. If the function is normal during exercise, then the risk of coronary artery disease was less.

Then they compared those results with the climbing of the staircase. 58% of patients with less than 1.5min of staircase climbing had abnormal heart function during the treadmill examination.

And 32% of people who climbed the staircase in less than 1 min had abnormal heart function during the treadmill examination.

Through this experiment, DR.Peteiro noticed that correlation between the stair climbing time and exercise capacity (METs) was similar in the general population.

And the corresponding mortality rates and heart function by imaging would be more favourable than for patients with symptoms and suspected or confirmed coronary artery disease.

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