Exercise, Sex Can Boost Heart Attack Risk

March 22, 2011 -- Exercise and sex can boost the risk of heart attack and sudden cardiac death, according to a new report, although the increased risk is small and transient, the researchers say.

The risk is higher for those who are occasional exercisers compared to habitual exercisers, says researcher Issa Dahabreh, MD, a research associate at the Center for Clinical Evidence Synthesis, Institute for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies at Tufts Medical Center in Boston.

"For those individuals habitually physically active, they are less susceptible to the triggering effects of physical activity and sexual activity," he tells WebMD.

His report, which analyzed previously published studies looking at the link between exercise, sex, and heart attack or sudden cardiac death, is published in The Journal of the American Medical Association.

The new findings echo those of previous research, says Barry Franklin, PhD, a spokesman for the American Heart Association and director of Cardiovascular Rehabilitation and Exercise Laboratories, Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak, Mich.

Overall, the bottom line? For susceptible people who engage in vigorous activity -- whether exercise or sex -- ''yes, the transient risk of a catastrophic cardiac event increases during and immediately after that period," Franklin says. However, when people are in good physical condition, ''the risk is essentially non-existent or very, very slightly increased.”

Exercise, Sex, and Heart Attacks: Study Details

Dahabreh and his co-author, Jessica Paulus, ScD, an assistant professor of medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine, combed the medical literature for published studies looking at the link between exercise, sex, and heart attack or sudden cardiac death.

Many previous studies were limited by small numbers of participants, the researchers say; so they pooled the results, hoping to get stronger statistics and possibly identify a pattern not evident in smaller studies.

They focused on 10 studies that looked at physical activity, three that focused on sexual activity, and one that looked at both. The studies compared the risk of heart attacks and sudden death when participants were exposed to physical activity and engaged in sexual activity to times when they were not, and the effect on cardiac health.

''These [types of] studies are particularly useful for [assessing] transient or short-term risks," says Paulus, who is also an adjunct assistant professor of epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Overall, they found:

• Episodes of physical activity boosted heart attack risk 3.5 times and risk of cardiac death nearly 5 times.
• Sexual activity increased heart attack risk 2.7 times; no statistic is available for the link between sex and sudden cardiac death risk, Dahabreh says.

Paulus puts the risk in perspective this way: ''Physical activity and sexual activity are triggers of heart attack and sudden cardiac death, but that risk occurs over a very short period of time -- on the order of one to two hours -- during and after the activity."