 "Photo: Peyton McGee/The Daily Texan")
Though no research has proven that swimming can improve cardiovascular health, two UT researchers are determined to prove its health benefits.
Associate kinesiology professor Hirofumi Tanaka and kinesiology graduate student Nantinee Nualnim want to help prevent cardiovascular diseases like hypertension and heart disease before they develop in middle-aged and older people. Heart disease is the No. 1 killer in America, according to the American Heart Association, and maintaining a healthy diet and physical activity are two of the best ways to help prevent it.
Tanaka said swimming is a “great” form of exercise because it is easy on the joints, the water bears a swimmer’s weight and swimmers need not worry about suffering heat stroke.
“It’s an ideal form of exercise, but there is no science behind it,” Tanaka said. “The reason swimming is included as a recommended form of exercise is because scientists extrapolated through studies on jogging and running that swimming is beneficial, but it’s not really justified.”
But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend swimming and suggest that it can improve health.
“Working to prevent and control obesity, chronic disease, and other health conditions through regular physical activity and good nutrition, one can achieve the recommended amount of physical activity through recreational water activities, such as swimming,” according to the CDC Web site. “By achieving the recommended amount of exercise through activities, such as swimming, one may improve overall cardiovascular health.”
The American Heart Association’s Web site also states that swimming is among the exercises that are best for improving the fitness of the heart and lungs.
But unlike other forms of exercise, swimming can often stimulate the appetite, Tanaka said, and swimmers often have higher body fat mass.
“When I get done running, I can’t eat anything,” Tanaka said. “But when I get done swimming, I want to eat an entire pizza. If you put rats on a treadmill and rats in a bucket, they’ll eat more after swimming. Nobody knows why that is.”
History freshman Jackson Wilcox, a member of the men’s swimming and diving team, said swimming “in appropriate amounts” is beneficial to health.
“If swimming makes you hungrier than other physical activity, either stop swimming or exercise some self-control about how much you eat,” he said. “It has most definitely been proven that exercise, including swimming, is good for you. That is a fact.”
The researchers began recruiting subjects between the ages of 50 and 80 this month. They received a grant from the American Heart Association in August, but it did not take effect until Oct. 1. Twenty subjects will participate in a 12-week, monitored swimming program, while another 20 participants who comprise the control group will participate in relaxation and breathing exercises, said Nualnim, the study’s principal investigator.
Potential subjects are undergoing baseline testing, including a measure of body fat and blood pressure, scans of arteries and a measure of aerobic capacity on a treadmill, she said. The 12-week program is expected to begin in November, and it could take two or three months to analyze the collected data, Nualnim said.
“When you describe exercise to people, you usually describe it as improving cardiovascular health, and swimming is one of the most popular forms,” she said. “We want to prove that swimming can lower blood pressure and improve cardiovascular health.”
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