Healthy lifestyle lowers heart risk

Adopting a healthy lifestyle even later in life can lower the risk of heart disease and premature death within years of changing habits. Researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina set out to find if late-starters could reap the rewards of healthy habits like eating vegetables and fruits, walking 30 minutes a day, keeping their weight under control and not smoking. When they began tracking nearly 16,000 people between the ages of 45 and 64 years in the late 1980s, only 8.5 per cent were following all the four habits included in the study. Out of the other adults, 8.4 percent started practising all four habits by six years after the study began. These 970 people who had changed their lifestyle were most likely to pick up the habit of eating fruits and vegetables. Losing weight to fall within the healthy to overweight range was the least popular change. Middle-aged adults who began eating five or more fruits and vegetables every day, exercising for at least 2.5 hours a week, keeping weight down and not smoking decreased their risk of heart disease by 35 per cent and risk of death by 40 per cent in the four years after they started. Their death rate and rate of heart attacks matched the people who had been following these behaviours throughout their lives. The results indicate that picking up all four habits leads to a sharp decline in heart disease risk and in death from any cause. However, it took all four habits for the health benefit, as having just three of the healthy habits yielded a modest decrease in overall risk of death but no significant reduction in heart disease. However, people should not wait till they turn 40 or 50 years to adopt a healthy lifestyle.