My father died of a heart attack when I was only sixteen. He was 58 and it was the third one that he suffered, his first at age 44. So heart disease is a subject close to my heart, no pun intended. And as you probably know, heart disease tends to run in families.
That’s one reason I am excited to tell you the great news about a recent medical study. The authors reported that your chances of having heart disease can be cut in half by following only three of four positive lifestyle practices—not smoking, not being obese, exercising regularly, and eating a healthy diet. This was true even for people like me with a strong family history of heart disease. And these lifestyle practices are easy enough for most of us to achieve. Specifically, they are:
- Not currently smoking
- Not being obese—this means a Body Mass Index less than 30. You can google BMI to get the formula for determining yours, based on your height and weight
- Exercising regularly—this was defined in the study as physical activity once a week or more, less than I would expect
- Healthy diet pattern—eating an increased amount of fruits, nuts, vegetables, whole grains, fish, and dairy products and a reduced amount of refined grains, processed meats, red meats, and sugar-sweetened beverages
The study found that those having three of the four lifestyle factors had half the risk of heart disease compared with those with one or no factors, even in people with a high genetic risk of heart disease. Having four of these factors should reduce your risk even more, although the authors did not report this in the study.
If you are already meeting these goals, Good on ya! as my friend from North Dakota says. If not, get busy making these positive lifestyle changes. Not only will you decrease your risk of heart disease, you will also feel better and improve your overall health.