Associations of self-reported stair climbing with all-cause and cardiovascular mortality: The Harvard Alumni Health Study

To evaluate the association between numbers of floors climbed (per week) and all-cause and cardiovascular (CVD) mortality in men. A prospective study was conducted in 8874 men (Median [interquartile range] age: 65 years [60–71.6 years]) from the Harvard Alumni Health Study. Participants reported the number of floors habitually climbed, physical activity in their leisure time, other health related behaviours and any physician diagnosed disease in 1988. Men were followed for mortality through December 2008. Multivariate Cox hazard models to examine the association between weekly number of floors climbed and all-cause and CVD mortality adjusted for participation in total physical activity and other confounders. During a median follow-up of 12.4 years, 4063 men died (1195 from CVD). After adjusting for confounders (age, walking, sports/recreation, body mass index, alcohol intake, and smoking, diagnoses of hypertension or diabetes or high cholesterol) number of stairs habitually climbed was inversely associated with all-cause mortality (p trend <0.001). Compared with the group who climbed <10 floors/week, the hazard ratio (HR) for the ≥35 floors/week group was 0.84 95% confidence interval (CI) (0.78–0.91). In contrast, we found no evidence for an association between stair climbing and CVD mortality risk (p trend = 0.38), in the ≥35 floors/week group: HR = 0.94 95%CI (0.81–1.09). In this cohort of older men, stair climbing was associated with a lower risk of mortality from any causes. Further insights may be gained from future observational studies utilizing emerging pattern recognition of stair climbing from objective measurements of physical activity.