THURSDAY, May 31 (HealthDay News) -- High levels of exercise help prevent stiffening of the arteries in middle-aged people, a small new study says.

Arterial stiffening, which has been shown to occur with age and inactivity, is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease.

This Indiana University study included 21 men and 28 women. Of those 49 participants, 33 were highly active U.S. Masters Swimmers who did more than 200 minutes of vigorous exercise a week. The other participants were either moderately or completely inactive.

The highly active people had far less arterial stiffness than the others. The researchers also found little difference between men and women in the highly active group, but considerable difference between men and women in the inactive and moderately active group. In that group, men had less arterial stiffness than women, according to a university news release.

"Oddly, women, particularly the inactive women, show the greatest risk for cardiovascular disease as compared with other groups," study author Maleah Holland, a graduate student in the university's School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation, wrote. "Thus, conversely, habitually high levels of physical activity may pose a greater benefit for women than for men."

This finding may be due to the fact that inactive women are more sedentary than inactive men, the researchers suggested.

The study was scheduled for presentation Thursday at the American College of Sports Medicine's annual meeting in San Francisco.

This research "reinforces the idea that activity could be more influential than aging on some health factors," Joel Stager, professor and director of the university's Counsilman Center, in the department of kinesiology, said in the news release.

Because this study was presented at a medical meeting, the data and conclusions should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases offers tips to help you get active.

WEDNESDAY, May 30 (HealthDay News) -- The ancient medical practice of bloodletting may benefit obese people with metabolic syndrome, a small new study suggests.

Metabolic syndrome is a group of conditions -- including abdominal obesity, high triglycerides (a type of fat found in the blood), high fasting blood sugar levels and high blood pressure -- that increase the risk of diabetes and heart disease.

Bloodletting was common throughout history but was abandoned in the 19th century when it was determined that it had little or no effect on most diseases. But this study by German researchers found that two sessions of blood donation improved blood pressure and markers of cardiovascular disease in obese patients with metabolic syndrome.

In the study, 64 patients were divided into two groups. One group donated 300 milliliters (ml) of blood at the start of the study and between 250 and 500 ml four weeks later. One group didn't donate blood.

Six weeks after the second blood donation -- which allowed sufficient time for the body to generate new blood and return blood volume to normal -- systolic blood pressure (the top number in a reading) among those who donated fell from an average of 148 mmHg to 130 mmHg.

They also had reductions in blood sugar levels and heart rate, and an improvement in cholesterol levels.

The study is in the May 30 issue of the journal BMC Medicine.

Blood donation is known to reduce levels of iron stores in the body. Prior research has found that an accumulation of iron in the body is associated with high blood pressure and diabetes, according to researchers.

"Blood donation may prevent not just diabetes but also cardiovascular disease for the obese," study leader Professor Andreas Michalsen from the Charité-University Medical Centre, in Berlin, said in a journal news release.

But another expert isn't convinced the findings support a bloodletting Renaissance. It's true that excessive iron can worsen high blood pressure and diabetes, so it's a good idea for anyone with those conditions to make sure they're not unnecessarily boosting their levels by taking an iron supplement or multivitamin containing iron, said Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum, a preventive cardiologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.

"With the advent of diet and exercise and medications, we should probably leave this practice of bloodletting to the 19th century, at which time the practice was abandoned," Steinbaum said. "Clearly there are alternative ways to manage these issues."

More information

The American Academy of Family Physicians has more about metabolic syndrome  .

TUESDAY, March 20 (HealthDay News) -- A state's level of wealth affects women's heart disease risk, a new study says.

Researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston assessed gross domestic product, poverty rates and levels of financial inequality in each state, and then compared those factors to indicators of cardiovascular inflammation in women nationwide who took part in the U.S. Women's Health Study.

Cardiovascular inflammation is a major risk factor for heart disease.

The researchers found that levels of cardiovascular inflammation were lower among women in wealthy states than those in poorer states, and lower among women in states with less financial inequality than among those in states with more inequality.

Even when an individual woman's diet, weight, personal income level, exercise and smoking habits were taken into account, the wealth of her home state still had a significant impact on her level of cardiovascular inflammation.

The study, which found a link between wealth and heart disease but did not prove a cause-and-effect relationship, appeared March 20 in the online edition of the journal BMC Public Health.

"We have been learning that geography matters for heart disease risk," study leader Dr. Cheryl Clark, director of health equity research and intervention at the Center for Community Health and Health Equity at Brigham and Women's Hospital, said in a hospital news release. "Our study suggests that state-level resources may contribute to early risk factors for heart disease in women."

Further research is needed to examine how state wealth affects women's levels of cardiovascular inflammation, Clark and her colleagues noted.

More information

The U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute has more about women and heart disease.

TUESDAY, March 20 (HealthDay News) -- Calculating the difference in blood pressure readings taken from the left and right arms might help predict a patient's odds of dying from heart disease, a new study suggests.

Researchers found that people with high blood pressure whose blood pressure varies significantly between each arm are at higher risk of cardiovascular death over 10 years.

The study supports "inter-arm difference as a simple indicator of increased cardiovascular risk," say a team led by Dr. Andrew Gould, of the Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry in Plymouth, England.

The new findings echo those of a study published in January in The Lancet. That study, also conducted by researchers at Peninsula College, reviewed data from 28 studies looking at differences between systolic blood pressure [the top number in a reading] between the right and left arms.

The team found that a difference of 15 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg) or more between readings was linked with an increased risk of narrowing or hardening of the arteries supplying the lower limbs, called peripheral vascular disease.

In the new study, Gould and colleagues looked at 230 patients with high blood pressure. They found that, after adjusting for age and gender, there was a 9 percent increased risk of death over the next 10 years for every one mm/Hg difference in blood pressure reading between the arms.

The findings suggest that blood pressure should be routinely measured in both arms for patients undergoing treatment for hypertension, the researchers report March 20 in the online edition of the BMJ.

One expert in the United States agreed with the findings.

"As the recent article points out, blood pressure readings in the right and left arm may differ by a few points," said Dr. Kevin Marzo, chief of cardiology at Winthrop-University Hospital in Mineola, N.Y. "However, a difference of more than 10 points [mm/Hg] could suggest trouble and alert the physician to intensify treatment strategies for preventing a heart attack or stroke. The 'vital' signs should include blood pressure in both arms -- a screening test that adds no cost, little time and potentially so critical to initiating lifesaving treatment.'

For patients found to have different blood pressure readings in their arms, subsequent monitoring should be performed in the arm with the higher reading because doing so would help determine necessary treatment, Dr. Dae Hyun Kim of Harvard Medical School added in an accompanying journal editorial.

Further research is needed to establish the link between different blood pressure readings in the arm and death risk, Kim added.

More information

The American Academy of Family Physicians has more about high blood pressure  .