Many of the risk factors for heart disease are related to lifestyle and environmental factors and are typically labeled uncontrollable (non-modifiable) or controllable (modifiable). These can be conditions, personal traits and lifestyles that contribute to atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), which causes coronary artery disease.
The seriousness of this disease can be seen in the fact that over 40% of all people in the United States who suffer a heart attack will die from its affects.
Heart disease, which is a term that includes several more specific heart conditions, is the leading cause of death in the United States and is a major cause of disability. The major forms of this most deadly of diseases include acute rheumatic fever, chronic rheumatic heart disease, hypertensive heart disease, coronary heart disease, pulmonary heart disease, congestive heart failure and any other heart condition or disease.
It is, in simplistic terms, the inability of the heart to pump or receive adequate amounts of blood due to atherosclerosis or damage to the heart caused by infection or congenital defects. In fact heart disease and stroke both have the same risk factors and causes.
An estimated 25% of all Americans have one or more risk factors, increasing their risk for heart attack. Most risk factors are related to lifestyle while other risk factors that cannot be changed include age, gender, and genetics.
Health behaviors associated with a high risk include being physically inactive, eating a diet high in salt and saturated fat, and smoking tobacco. While you can't control your age, gender, race, or family history, you can decrease your chances of developing this disease by focusing on the lifestyle changes you can make to improve your overall health.
Leading a healthy lifestyle and following medical advice to reduce or remove risk factors is the best way to reduce the risk of developing heart disease. Although it takes on different specific forms, there are a common core of risk factors that influence whether someone will ultimately be at risk for or not.
There are many factors that can increase your risk of getting heart disease. Some of these factors are out of your control but most of them can be avoided by choosing to live a healthy lifestyle. Excess body fat is one of the greatest risk factors. Cholesterol levels are determined by a combination of age, gender, heredity, and dietary choices, and of these four factors, changing your diet to a healthier one is something you can do something about. High blood pressure combined with other risk factors such as being physically inactive, eating a diet high in salt and saturated fat, and smoking tobacco greatly increases your chances of getting heart disease as well. In some cases other factors such as stress and drinking too much alcohol have been linked to cardiovascular disease.
Fortunately, many risk factors for heart disease are caused in part by unhealthy lifestyle habits, which can be altered so as to reduce one's chances of developing this deadly disease.
Think of the more common risk factors for coronary heart disease:
* Cigarette smoking - a lifestyle choice
* Elevated cholesterol - in part, a lifestyle choice
* High blood pressure - affected by life choices
* Obesity - resulting from lifestyle choices
* Prolonged periods of inactivity - a lifestyle choice
You probably know that changes to your lifestyle can readily reduce the risk for heart disease. Such changes do not require a physician's help, although you will want to seek your physician's advice. Nor do actions to reduce the risks of heart disease require participation in a program.
A report in the "American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine" for March/April 2007; 1(2): 79-90 called for practical steps doctors could take to help you change your lifestyle. That report states that most individuals who change lifestyle do it without any program, and gives these examples:
* "...more than 90% of individuals who have stopped smoking have done this without a formal smoking cessation program."
* "The majority of individuals who lose weight also do this on their own."
You can make lifestyle changes that will reduce heart disease risks.
Reduce Heart Disease Risks with These Steps
You can reduce the risk for heart disease by making a few changes in your current lifestyle.
1. Chocolate First
Can eating chocolate reduce the risk for heart disease? You have heard reports of it on television. You may have heard it discussed at the office. Is it true?
In 1996, University of California-Davis researcher Andrew Waterhouse found that chocolate contains phenols, chemicals that might reduce heart disease risks. Waterhouse wrote about his findings in the British medical journal Lancet, telling how he had used laboratory experiments to measure the amount of phenols in such products as baker's chocolate, cocoa powder, and milk chocolate. He found that it took less than 2 ounces of milk chocolate to provide the same amount of phenols as a 5-ounce glass of red wine, which was already known for reducing heart disease risks. He reasoned that not only can eating chocolate reduce the risk for heart disease, but that more research would show that it actually does.
In 2003, Dirk Taubert, MD, PhD, and his colleagues at the University of Cologne, Germany published a further report on chocolate in the Aug. 27 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association. Dark chocolate, they found, lowers high blood pressure and reduces that risk associated with heart disease. They had done clinical research to show the effects in humans. Milk chocolate and white chocolate did not have this effect. Milk, whether blended into the chocolate or used to wash down the chocolate, diluted the effect.
Why dark chocolate? The answer is the phenols that Waterhouse discovered in chocolate back in 1996. Cocoa phenols are known to lower blood pressure.
In addition, phenols lower the risk of heart disease by keeping fat-like substances from oxidizing in the bloodstream and clogging the arteries.
So can eating chocolate reduce the risk for heart disease?
It can reduce some risks - if it is dark chocolate - the darker the better - and is not washed down with milk. European made chocolates appear to be better than American made, since they contain more cocoa phenols.
2. Smoking
Another lifestyle change that can reduce the risk of heart disease is to stop smoking. Those who say they can't stop smoking have not been determined or committed enough. As quoted above from the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine, " more than 90% of individuals who have stopped smoking have done this without a formal smoking cessation program."
If you are serious about reducing heart disease risks, stop smoking.
3. Obesity
Overweight sounds nicer than obesity, but whichever way you look at it in the mirror, it is a lifestyle change you can make to reduce heart disease risks. You don't need to join one of the many programs advertised on television, or ask your doctor for prescription medication. You need to change your way of eating and get exercise.
4. Exercise
While the industrial age, followed by the information age, brought us many benefits, they also took away the benefits of farm work. A great number of us have developed a sedentary lifestyle that increases heart disease risks. To reverse that, and reduce the risks of heart disease, we need to follow a regular exercise program.
5. Cholesterol
Your genetic makeup may predispose you to higher levels of cholesterol. To reduce this risk of heart disease, you can change your diet to one of the many that reduce cholesterol intake.
Conclusion
There are other risks for heart disease, but these are examples of those that can be reduced by making simple changes in the way you live. Can they be eradicated without medication? Sometimes they can. Can they become less of a risk for heart disease without medication? Yes. It certainly is worth making the necessary changes.
CAUTION: The author is not a medical professional, and offers the information in this article for educational purposes only. Please discuss it with your health care provider before relying on it in any way.
Both Andrew Bicknell & Anna Hart are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
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