The heart is the engine of the body and the blood circulation. It beats around three billion times in the course of a lifetime and supplies the body with oxygen and nutrients. Precise cardiac medicine and prevention ensure many healthy years - even with heart defects.
In the 3sat film "Heart revolution - how we grow old healthier" by editor Berndt Welz, which will be broadcast for the first time on September 29 at 8:15 PM in the format "Wissen hoch 2" on 3sat, Prof. Dr. Martin Halle also contributes his profound expertise.
In the film, the head of the Chair of Preventive and Rehabilitative Sports Medicine explains the importance of physical activity and other influencing factors for the human heart: "I exercise regularly for 30 minutes. I don't smoke. I am not overweight. I eat a Mediterranean diet and drink only a little alcohol, if possible I am even completely abstinent. It's clearly the case that you can certainly get 20 years out of it with a lifestyle that's active and that results in not being overweight and, of course, having fewer risk factors for cardiovascular disease."
However, most people don't exercise enough. Prof. Halle has therefore been studying for 20 years how a healthier lifestyle can improve heart health: "Preventive cardiology means preventing heart disease from occurring in the first place, and recognizing early on when risk factors are present that can affect the heart. These include, for example, cholesterol, blood pressure or diabetes, which over time cause heart disease. Preventive cardiology means intervening so that heart disease doesn't happen in the first place."
The 3sat camera team accompanied Lydia Riessner, among others, as she completed a stress test in Prof. Halle's sports medicine outpatient clinic at the Klinikum Rechts der Isar, Campus Olympiapark. For good reason: the 66-year-old wants to compete in the German Beach Volleyball Championships in 2023.
In the feedback conversation after the examination, Prof. Halle has good news for the pensioner: "Everything looks very, very good. The blood pressure regulation is also excellent. It is low, which is also important because the cardiovascular system is not stressed. Under stress, blood pressure also rises, it should, but only up to a certain limit. You don't exceed that either, which is why everything looks good from my side." Accordingly, Riessner gets the green light from Prof. Halle for the Beach Volleyball Championships.
Finally, 3sat accompanied the cardiac sports group of the Technical University of Munich, which trains in the triple hall of the new TUM Campus in the Olympic Park. It is aimed at patients who have had a heart attack, bypass surgery, heart valve surgery, heart transplantation or who have heart muscle inflammation, heart muscle weakness and coronary artery disease. The group is supervised and led by resident Otto Zelger of the Chair of Preventive and Rehabilitative Sports Medicine. "The skeletal muscles must be maintained in their capacity so that even everyday stresses can be performed more economically and the heart is thus relieved," says Zelger.
That's why doctors nowadays recommend that heart patients do three to four hours of exercise a week.
To the 3sat film „Heart revolution - how we grow old healthier“
To the homepage of the Chair of Preventive and Rehabilitative Sports Medicine
Contact:
Prof. Dr. Martin Halle
Chair of Preventive and Rehabilitative Sports Medicine
Georg-Brauchle-Ring 56 (Campus C)
80992 München
phone: 089 289 24441
e-mail: sportmed(at)mri.tum.de
Text: Romy Schwaiger
Photos: 3sat