12 2GM Wednesday January 26 2022 | the times
News
Short daily
stroll linked
to longer life
A ten-minute stroll a day could add
years to a person’s life, research claims.
A study of 5,000 older people found
deaths fell significantly as physical
activity increased. Ten, 20, or 30 min-
utes of extra exercise a day cut annual
death rates by seven, 13 and 17 per cent.
The findings are based on Americans
aged 40 to 85 who wore accelerometers
on their waists for a week. Dr Pedro
Saint-Maurice, of the US National
Institutes of Health, said that scaling
up the results to the whole American
population suggested adding ten
minutes a day of physical activity would
prevent 111,174 deaths annually.
The number almost doubled and
tripled — to 209,459 and 367,037 re-
spectively — for 20 and 30 minutes.
Similar results were observed in both
sexes and all ethnic backgrounds.
For healthy adults, doctors suggested
150 minutes of activity or 75 minutes of
moderate or vigorous aerobic activity,
respectively, a week. Exercise helps
people to lose weight, lowering the risk
of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and
cancer. It also protects against demen-
tia by boosting blood flow to the brain.
The report is published in the peer-
reviewed medical journal JAMA Inter-
nal Medicine.VICTORIA JONES/PAScientists uncover
scale of hidden
heart valve disease
An estimated 300,000 people in the
UK have potentially fatal heart valve
disease and the number is set to rise fur-
ther as the population ages, according
to a new study.
The NHS will struggle to meet the
needs of those affected, who often re-
quire surgical treatment, researchers
warned.
They also said that more than half of
those with advanced disease were likely
to die within five years without timely,
proactive treatment.
In aortic stenosis, the main outflow
valve of the heart stiffens and narrows,
no longer opening fully. This can re-
duce or block the flow of blood from the
heart into the main artery and rest of
the body.
Many people will be unaware that
they have the condition and symptoms
only become apparent when the condi-
tion is already advanced.
The new paper, published in the open
access journal Open Heart, offers the
first “robust estimates” of how common
severe aortic valve stenosis is across the
UK and how many individuals would
benefit from either surgical aortic valve
replacement (SAVR) or transcatheter
aortic valve implant (TAVI).
The research team, from hospitals in
Australia and across the UK, made
their calculations using earlier
prevalence studies and data on the age
breakdown of the UK population.
They estimated 1.5 per cent of over-
55s in the UK in 2019 had the condition.
Some 68 per cent of those had sympto-
matic disease and this would prompt
the need for about 116,000 SAVR and
51,000 TAVI procedures, which the
researchers said was “far greater thanthe current capacity within the NHS to
screen, detect, triage and treat such
cases”.
Numbers are likely to increase
further as the population ages, the re-
searchers said, adding: “There seems
little doubt, therefore, that there is a
significant shortfall between interven-
tions undertaken for severe [aortic
stenosis] and our estimates of potential
demand.” Those with silent disease are
unlikely to be diagnosed without
proactive screening, or undergoing
tests for another heart problem, the
researchers said.
However, they estimated that with-
out timely proactive treatment, up to
172,859 of those with severe aortic
stenosis in 2019 will die over the next
five years to 2024, equal to 35,
people every year.
Nearly 10,000 deaths will be among
those aged 55 to 64, and almost 30,
in those aged 65 to 74, with the majority
in over-75s.
Professor Sir Nilesh Samani, medical
director at the British Heart Founda-
tion, said: “As the population ages, the
number of people in the UK living with
aortic stenosis is expected to rise
further, which will inevitably put health
services under even more pressure.
Aortic stenosis significantly increases
the risk of heart failure, so it is vital that
patients have access to the best
treatment when required to avoid their
condition worsening.
“We can only continue to identify the
most effective treatments through re-
search. The British Heart Foundation is
funding research into better treatments
for aortic stenosis, and if successful, this
could help to reduce the risk of debili-
tating and potentially deadly heart fail-
ure for increasing numbers of people.”Kat Lay Health EditorTogether we stand The Duchess of Cornwall hosted a reception yesterday to mark 50 years of “outstanding service” since
Refuge was founded as the world’s first women’s shelter. She was joined by Priti Patel, the home secretary, second left
Ethics alert
over fertility
clinics in US
British patients have been urged to
avoid American fertility clinics that
promise to use a new genetic screening
technique to produce healthier babies.
A small number of US companies
now select embryos for IVF using poly-
genic risk scores (PRS), suggesting they
can lower the risk of conditions such as
schizophrenia and heart disease.
The technique recognises that
vulnerability to a single disease is often
influenced by a huge number of genes.
A million or more points on a person’s
DNA may each have a tiny effect; a PRS
combines them to sum up a person’s
genetic predisposition.
Using a PRS to select an embryo is
illegal in the UK and the European
Society of Human Genetics said yester-
day that selling them for IVF was tanta-
mount to peddling “snake oil”.
Sarah Norcross, the director of the
charity Progress Educational Trust,
called on regulators to be alert to the
tests being marketed in this country.
The Human Fertilisation and
Embryology Authority said: ““There is
no scientific consensus that it is
currently possible to test and identify
genes for complex traits.”Rhys Blakely Science Correspondent