Heart health isn’t just about preventing heart attacks; it’s a crystal ball for your future well-being. A recent review of nearly 500 studies found that heart health reduces risk of dementia by 86 percent, kidney disease by 62 percent, and cancer by 20 percent. Each additional heart-healthy habit also cuts the risk of depression by 10 percent.
The findings indicate that keeping a healthy heart puts you on a path to better health from head to toe, Dr. Stacey E. Rosen, president of the American Heart Association (AHA) and senior vice president of women’s health at Northwell Health, told The Epoch Times.
The 7 Simple Metrics That Predict Your Future
The new review in the Journal of the American Heart Association centered on what doctors call Life’s Simple 7 (LS7), a framework that measures heart health through seven key areas.
Three Health Behaviors:
- Healthy Diet
- Physical Activity
- Smoking Status
Four Health Factors:
- Body Mass Index (BMI)
- Blood Pressure
- Total Cholesterol
- Fasting Blood Glucose
The AHA’s LS7 framework evaluates a person’s behaviors and overall health.
Ideal heart health is defined as meeting ideal measurements in six of these seven areas.
Maintaining ideal or even intermediate cardiovascular health for five years cuts the risk of hypertension by 33 percent, major chronic diseases by 25 percent, and death from all causes by 14 percent.
The study found that some LS7 goals are easier to reach than others. Not smoking was the most commonly met, while maintaining a healthy diet was the hardest—fewer than 1 percent met dietary goals.
“Healthy eating improves the health of blood vessels, which leads to improved health throughout the body,” Dr. Donald E. Wesson, a nephrologist and professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s Dell Medical School, told The Epoch Times. “This is particularly so for organs with a high density of blood vessels like the brain and kidneys.”
The study also found that ideal physical activity peaked in young adulthood, but dropped off in teens and older adults, with only about one in four in each group meeting the recommended levels. Other metrics—such as weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, and glucose—start strong in adolescence but decline steadily with age.
Rosen noted that many people struggle to eat well or exercise because of cost, time, and daily responsibilities such as work and family.
“Bigger issues like not having enough money, resources or support can make healthy living a challenge,” she added.
How Heart Health Influences Overall Body Health
When your cardiovascular system struggles, it triggers a cascade of problems throughout your body.
Chronic inflammation is one of the main ways poor heart health leads to other diseases. When cardiovascular health suffers, it can trigger immune responses that keep the body in a low-grade, inflamed state. If inflammation persists, it begins to damage blood vessels and organs.
As heart health declines, problems such as high blood pressure, poor circulation, and excess body fat can damage blood vessels and tissues. This damage leads to a buildup of unstable oxygen molecules, which overwhelm the body’s natural defenses and cause oxidative stress. In turn, oxidative stress makes it harder for cells to use insulin and manage energy, raising the risk of Type 2 diabetes and fatty liver disease.
Environmental factors such as an unhealthy diet, infections, or pollution can worsen inflammation and oxidative stress, further damaging blood vessels and organs.
8 Steps to Transform Your Heart Health
Here are some actionable steps you can take to improve your heart health:
- Eat More Fruits and Veggies: Eating 10 servings of fruits and vegetables a day may lower your risk of cardiovascular diseases by 28 percent and premature death from all causes by 31 percent.
- Stay Active: Getting 150 minutes of moderate or 75 minutes of vigorous activity per week—such as brisk walking, biking, or running—can cut the risk of death by 21 percent. Doing two to four times more may boost that benefit to 31 percent. But movements don’t have to be big. “Sit less, even if it’s just to stand up and stretch every hour or so,” Rosen said.
- Quit Smoking: Stopping smoking directly reduces damage to blood vessels and lowers cholesterol and blood pressure levels. Quitting smoking also cuts your risk of stroke and heart attack by half after a year.
- Manage Salt Intake: Cutting salt by 2,300 milligrams can lower systolic blood pressure by 5.6 mmHg and diastolic by 2.3 mmHg. For context, every 5 mmHg drop in systolic blood pressure reduces the risk of a cardiovascular event by 10 percent.
- Get Enough Sleep: Sleeping less than five hours doubles your risk of developing artery disease compared with getting seven to eight hours. Rosen suggests practicing good sleep hygiene, such as turning off the TV early or putting away electronics once you get into bed.
- Get Screened for Apnea: If you snore or feel unusually tired during the day, consider getting screened for obstructive sleep apnea. Left untreated, sleep apnea increases your risk of high blood pressure, heart failure, stroke, and heart disease.
- Manage Your Emotions: Frequent, recurring anger may increase the risk of heart disease by limiting the blood vessels’ ability to open. Positive emotions such as happiness and contentment may protect against heart disease and stroke.
- Care for Your Oral Health: Poor oral health can lead to gum disease, which causes chronic inflammation, damages blood vessels, and increases the risk of heart problems. Brushing your teeth twice a day for at least two minutes reduces that risk.
It’s Never Too Late to Start
Despite the well-established benefits, cardiovascular health remains extremely low worldwide. Most studies have found that fewer than 4 percent of people meet all seven metrics at ideal levels, with slightly higher rates among adolescents aged 12 to 17. Women generally have better cardiovascular health than men.
People who build healthy habits young are far more likely to maintain them into midlife. Even those with a high genetic risk of heart disease can cut their risk by keeping at least three of the seven metrics in the ideal range.
A global study analyzing more than 2 million people found that when adults aged 55 to 60 lowered their high blood pressure, it added about one year of cardiovascular disease-free life for men and more than two years for women. Quitting smoking at that age brought the largest gains—more than two years of additional healthy life.
The more risk factors people improved, the more healthy years they gained. Those who improved four of these saw more than five additional years free of heart disease and early death.
In a separate study, people who began with poor heart health but improved to intermediate or ideal levels lowered their risk of cardiovascular disease by 33 percent and early death by 20 percent, compared with those who remained in poor health.
