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05 Bordeaux family cycling (Photo credit- Copenhagenize Design Co)Cyclists and walkers five times less likely to die during operations
Patients who get fit by doing exercise like cycling and walking are five times less likely to die during or just after a surgical procedure and save the NHS an average £6,000, a study has found.
The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh has discovered that regardless of their age, patients who are fitter are less at risk of dying during and operation and recover a lot faster.
The report, published in the Annals of Surgery, makes the case that deaths after surgery can be as high as 22 per cent in patients with low levels of fitness, whereas patients who were fitter had only a four per cent mortality rate.
Ian Ritchie, president of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and a consultant trauma and orthopaedic surgeon, told the Telegraph: “Our job as surgeons doesn’t begin and end in the operating theatre.
“Exercise clearly helps people stave off disease and live longer – and whenever appropriate, it should become an integral part of the surgical prescription as well.
"At the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh we are committed to improving standards through education and training.
“We believe this programme will improve patient outcomes, decrease costs and above all help reduce mortality by giving us healthier patients who can bounce back quicker after a surgical intervention.”
Jon Dearing, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon and regional surgical advisor for the RCSEd said: “A simple 30 minutes of physical activity per day in the lead up to surgery not only can significantly reduce avoidable complications and mortality, but in some instances can even improve the chances of ‘borderline’ or unsuitable surgical candidates.
“We’re not talking necessarily about donning Lycra and getting sweaty at a gym – just straightforward measures such as walking or cycling instead of driving, taking the stairs instead of the lift and parking further away from the shops. Simple steps like this can improve surgical outcomes, aid the recovery process and even enhance the patient’s own psychological well-being as they get better faster. Most waiting times for surgery are around 12 weeks – this is plenty of time to work on increasing the likelihood of a successful operation.”
We previously reported how research conducted by an academic at the University of East Anglia (UEA) found that regular, daily exercise such as cycling and walking, along with giving up smoking – or not starting in the first place – are the most important steps people can take to improve their health.
While studies extolling the benefits of regular exercise are nothing new - this research, conducted by analysing the results of 40 separate studies conducted worldwide, does highlight is the range of conditions that an active lifestyle can help prevent.
Leslie Alford, a trained physiotherapist who lectures at UEA, identified 24 separate conditions, including dementia and cancer, that people could lessen the risk of contracting by undertaking regular exercise of as little as 30 minutes a day. He also says that it can also help the reduce the rate at which the body deteriorates with age.
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17 comments
No; if you're in, you're in.
Think of the complexities if one could insist that ones corneas could only go to lingerie designers...
Only if
a) They are on the organ donor list and/or their next of kin agree to them becoming a donor, and
b) They die in hospital in a relatively controlled and predictable way.
Worth signing up to anyway https://www.organdonation.nhs.uk/how_to_become_a_donor/registration/cons...
Of course not all road kill cyclists will be registered donors who lie in a head injured coma waiting for the machines to be turned off. But some will be.
Could I put a clause on my organ donor card, excluding fat Clarkson types from getting my heart post mortem?
To follow on Airzounds comment
How were these figures derived? By comparing identical operations? By comparing over all operations?
I agree in principle, but since I expect bicyclists to have more broken bones and sedentarists to have more stomach and heart problems etc., then maybe its not the survival rate but the kind of operations which are important - broken bones are inherently more survivable.
I have often wondered whether cyclists provide a handy source of healthy hearts and lungs for transplant into the decrepit bodies of the drivers who knock them over.
No shit Sherlock …………
Stating the bleedin' obvious really.
It just means that when we cyclists die, it will likely be when we are riding on the roads, we will be really healthy, too healthy to die. So the only time we will be lying on an operating table in hospital is when some fucker in car, van, bus, truck, [insert what ever vehicle you want] has run us down and left us for dead.
Can I just have the 6K now and I will get myself a Canyon with Sram and the trimmings. I am sure it will work out the cheapest thing for the country as a whole.
Fit people 5 times more likely to recover from surgery.
Bears 5 times more likely to shit in woods...
From the Telegraph: 'Patients with poor cardiorespiratory fitness are five times more likely to die during or just after a surgical procedure and cost the NHS an extra £6,000, due to longer recovery times in hospital, it was found.'
So its not that being fit saves cash, its just that being unfit costs more- which isn't quite the same thing.
I don't get it, where does the £6000 saving come from? if you die? Surely if geriatrics are having ops, they are more likely to die anyway, due to the risk associated with age?
Completely agree with this article. 4 years ago I had a routine operation and ended up in ICU for 8 weeks. My family were told I was unlikely to survive an emergency operation they had to do. Stubbornly I'm still here... And the Docs put that down to my fitness level. I'm no Bradley Wiggins and I'm not the skinniest cyclist on the planet but it made the difference that my daughters still have their dad to annoy them!
I'm 71 and have cycled for many years. I suffered a major injury to my hip (ironically as a result of a cycle accident) and the surgeon was able to rebuild my hip, rather than do a hip replacement, because my bone quality was excellent for my age. My recovery has been quick and pain free and I was back on the bike after only 3 months. So - fitness pays!
Excellent. Now we have empirical evidence to prove that taking regular exercise has a direct impact on reducing the cost to the taxpayer funding the NHS, can I have some of my taxes back, please?
Sadly, if rational messages like this were a solution to the problem, we wouldn't have a health crisis in the first place. The human brain just can't connect short term behaviour with long term harm... as mentioned above re smoking.
Are these savings not cancelled out by all the operations to remove third testicles?
"Our job as surgeons doesn’t begin and end in the operating theatre."
A surgeons job only starts when the Anaesthetist who enables him to do his job and who keeps the patient alive allows him to.
I'm sure the Royal College of Anaesthetists had a say in this, or at least I hope they did.
Considering how many years we have been told that smoking is bad for you, and how many still smoke. It's going to take a lot of years to get this message through to those sorts of people,
All good stuff, pointing to what should be obvious, that when the state underwrites everyone's medical care as with our NHS then the government really should be doing everything it can to help keep the population fit.
Just a couple of niggles on the article, is that £6,000 on average for EVERY surgical procedure?
and "Most waiting times for surgery are around 12 weeks – this is plenty of time to work on increasing the likelihood of a successful operation."
is it just me or does the run up to an operation not really seem the best time to introduce a programme of exercise into someone's life