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HowToPreventHeartDisease.com |
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Your Heart's Condition Could Determine Your Lifespan! The American Heart Association (AHA) reported that heart disease is the single leading cause of death for both men and women in the United States. There are at least 58.8 million Americans suffer from some form of heart disease. Every year, cardiovascular diseases (the combination of heart disease and stroke) kill some 950,000 Americans. Whether a person would develop heart disease is determined by many risk factors, some are inherited but others are controllable. Examples of uncontrollable factors are family history of heart disease, ageing, and diabetes while body weight, tobacco use, cholesterol (bad cholesterol, or LDL) level, and blood pressure are controllable risk factors. In general, heart disease can mostly be prevented. In fact, many studies have shown that heart disease rates could be reduced if people do not smoke, eat a healthy diet and exercise regularly. Nevertheless, few studies have determined to what extend is life expectancy shortened by possessing these heart disease risk factors. A recent study conducted by researchers from the University of Oxford found that middle-aged men, who smoke and have high cholesterol and blood pressure, would cut their life expectancy substantially, as compared to those men who have none of these heart disease risk factors.
From the long-running Whitehall study of British civil servants, data were gathered from 19,019 male civil servants who were examined in the years between September 1967 and January 1970 when they were between 40 and 69 years old. At the outset of the study, the participants were asked to provide detailed information on their medical history, lifestyle and smoking habits. Meanwhile, their weight, blood pressure, lung function, cholesterol and blood sugar levels were also recorded. The participants were followed for 38 years, and 13,501 of them died. In 1997, the researchers re-examined 4,811 participants. The findings, published on September 17, 2009 on the British Medical Journal (BMJ), reported that men who had all the 3 risk factors at the outset were 2 to 3 times more likely to die of heart disease than those men who were free of all the 3 risk factors. On average, their lifespan was shortened by 10 years. Over the past decade, the percentage of people who had heart attack or fatal strokes has declined by nearly a quarter in many rich countries. However, the prevalence of known risk factors has not dropped as quickly as they should. According to AHA, uncontrolled hypertension has fallen since 1999 by only 16 percent, high blood cholesterol by 19 percent and tobacco use by just over 15 percent. On the other hand, other sources of risk have remained constant or even increased. For instance, people exercise no more than 10 years ago while obesity rate has climbed sharply, especially among children. Previous studies in the United Kingdoms and United States have shown that about half of the reduction in coronary deaths between 1980 and 2000 could be owing to the reductions in major risk factors and about half to the improvements in medical treatment of people with established vascular disease. The public health policies aimed at achieving modest changes in major risk factors throughout the population have somehow improved the life expectancy. As indicated in the report, a greater proportion of older generation in the United Kingdom will be surviving to very old age. Further improvement in lifespan is possible if public health strategies could continue aiming to lower mean levels of the 3 main heart disease risk factors with more intensive medical treatment for high risk subgroups, including use of medication to lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
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