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Healthy lifestyle cuts heart failure risk

Sticking with a healthy diet and lifestyle can reduce the risks of high blood pressure and heart failure.

Healthy lifestyle cuts heart failure risk

Sticking with a healthy diet and lifestyle can reduce the risks of high blood pressure and heart failure, a condition in which the heart cannot pump enough blood to supply the body with oxygen and nutrients.

Heart failure remains a major public health issue and despite improved medical and surgical care, mortality after onset of heart failure remains high. Lifetime risk is the risk of ever developing a disease during one's remaining lifetime before dying from other causes. It is estimated that 1 in every 5 adults aged 40 years will develop heart failure during their remaining lifetime and thus, it remains important to focus on the primary prevention of heart failure as several predictors of heart failure can be influenced by modifiable lifestyle factors. Researchers in America sought to assess the association between modifiable lifestyle factors and the remaining lifetime risk of heart failure in a large cohort of men.

In the first investigation, researchers from Boston analysed data from 20,900 men in the Physicians' Health Study I (1982-2008) to assess the link between lifestyle factors and the lifetime risk of heart failure. The subjects were followed for 22.4 years, on an average. The lifetime risk of heart failure, assessed at age 40 years, was about one in seven.

A variety of healthy lifestyle habits were linked to a lower risk of heart failure. These habits included maintaining a normal body weight, not smoking, regular exercise, moderate alcohol intake, consumption of breakfast cereals, and consumption of fruits and vegetables. Men who adhered to none of the healthy lifestyle factors had the highest lifetime risk of heart failure - 21 percent - while those who adhered to four or more had the lowest risk 10 percent.

The second investigation involved an analysis of data from 83,882 women in the Nurses' Health Study (1991-2005). The goal was to assess the impact that various diet and lifestyle factors had, in combination, on the risk of high blood pressure. The study focused on six factors, previously tied to a reduced risk of high blood pressure: normal body weight, vigorous exercise for an average of 30 minutes per day, consuming a healthy diet, modest alcohol intake, use of pain medications less than once per week, and use of supplemental folic acid, a form of vitamin B.

The presence of 6, 5, 4, and 3 of the factors cut the risk of high blood pressure by 78, 72, 58, and 54 percent, respectively, relative to the complete absence of these factors. The factor with the single greatest impact on high blood pressure was body weight. Women who were obese were 5 times more likely to develop high blood pressure than were women of normal body weight.

The researchers concluded that many new cases of high blood pressure could be prevented through adherence to the low-risk dietary and lifestyle factors described.

The results of this study reveal that individuals who adhere to modifiable lifestyle factors have a low lifetime risk of developing heart failure and this emphasizes the need for incorporation of these behaviors in prevention strategies against heart failure at both the individual and the population level.

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