Researchers from an international consortium led by Radboudumc, Liverpool John Moores University, and the University of Glasgow found that exercise-based cardiac rehabilitation can improve quality of life in people with stable angina. The findings were published in the American Journal of Preventive Cardiology.
Stable angina is a condition in which the heart does not get enough blood during physical effort. This can cause chest pain, pressure, or tightness, especially during activities such as walking or climbing stairs. As a result, daily life can become increasingly limited.
Daily life with angina
Treatment for stable angina usually starts with medication. If symptoms continue, some patients may need a procedure or surgery. But researchers are increasingly looking at whether lifestyle programs, especially supervised exercise, can also help reduce symptoms and improve daily functioning.
That may sound surprising, because physical activity is often what triggers angina in the first place. “At first glance, it may seem counterintuitive that exercise would help patients whose symptoms are often brought on by exertion,” says Niels Stens, postdoctoral researcher at Radboudumc and project manager of CardiacCare@Home. “But when exercise is introduced carefully and progressively, it can strengthen the heart muscle, improve circulation, and help the body do more with less effort.”
This may help explain why activities that once triggered symptoms can gradually become easier. “Everyday activities that were once challenging due to symptoms can become easier to manage over time,” Stens says.
Exercise and recovery
Exercise-based cardiac rehabilitation is already part of standard care for people with heart failure or coronary artery disease. For patients with stable angina, however, this is not yet the case. Until recently, relatively few studies had focused specifically on this group.
To learn more, researchers combined data from several studies comparing people with stable angina who took part in exercise-based cardiac rehabilitation with those who did not. Their analysis showed that patients in these programs reported meaningful improvements in quality of life.
“That is clinically important, because improving quality of life is one of the main goals in treating angina,” says Dick Thijssen, professor of cardiovascular physiology at Radboudumc. “Our findings suggest that exercise-based cardiac rehabilitation could be a valuable addition to current treatment for these patients.”
The researchers now want to better understand whether these programs may also reduce hospital admissions and improve long-term outcomes. Larger studies are already being planned.
This research is part of the GLOBAL-DATA-MATCH consortium.
About the publication
De Koning IA, Heutinck JM, Buckley BJR, Dibben GO, Campo G, Hautala AJ, Snoek JA, Maddison R, Santaularia N, Houle J, Lip GYH, van Geuns RJM, Vromen T, Kemps HMC, Taylor RS, Stens NA, Thijssen DHJ, CaReMATCH collaborators. Exercise-based cardiac rehabilitation for patients with angina pectoris: a CaReMATCH individual participant data meta-analysis. American Journal of Preventive Cardiology. 2026:101535. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajpc.2026.101535
