Is buck fever a heart hazard?

You don't need to struggle through a triathlon to endanger your heart. Deer hunting can put men with clogged arteries at risk of a heart attack, hints a second study reported at the 69th Scientific Sessions of the American Heart Association in New Orleans.

Susan Haapaniemi of William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Mich., and her colleagues wondered whether the stress of a hunt could trigger hazardous changes in heart rate. They decided to find out by giving 25 men portable heart monitors to wear during a deer hunt. Seventeen of these hunters had previously been diagnosed with atherosclerosis, a condition in which fatty plaque clogs the arteries.

The researchers' data revealed that deer hunting puts rigorous demands on the cardiovascular system. For some men, the adrenaline surge occasioned merely by sighting a deer pushed their heart rate into the danger zone. One man's heart rate soared from 78 beats per minute to a whopping 168-while he was sitting in a tree, Haapaniemi told Science News.

Success in hunting also proved exceptionally strenuous. The American Heart Association recommends a target zone for exercising that puts the heart within 50 to 75 percent of its desirable maximum rate. Shooting a deer sent heart rates up to 118 percent of that level, Haapaniemi says. Dragging a dead deer back to the road sent some hunters' heart rates up to 116 percent of the desirable maximum, Haapaniemi noted, adding that hunters often drag a deer for about an hour.

High heart rates strain the heart. For people with already clogged arteries, that strain could lead to a heart attack, Haapaniemi says.

The researchers urged hunters with heart disease to avoid dragging a deer, the hunting activity that makes the most sustained demand on the heart.

Gerald F. Fletcher of the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla., says that people who love to hunt should condition themselves ahead of time so they avoid triggering a high heart rate.