Heart
disease holds a firm grip on both men and women, regardless of age, due
to the lifestyle changes such as smoking and drinking alcohol, spiking
stress, air pollution and increasing consumption of salt, sugar, and
fat.
Seven key measures of heart health may help predict future risk of
cardiovascular disease, according to researchers. They added that
improving these measures may also help decrease the risk of CVD in the
future.
‘Cardiovascular
diseases (CVDs) such as atherosclerosis, heart disease, and stroke are
the leading cause of death around the world. In order to save millions
of lives, it is necessary to follow certain lifestyle and dietary
modifications that will significantly help reduce the risk of heart
disease to improve your heart health.’
The team of researchers, including three from Penn State, studied how
seven key health measures -- like diet, exercise and blood pressure --
were related to people's cardiovascular health over time.
They identified five patterns of how well people did or did not do on
the seven health measures over time. These patterns were able to help
predict participants' future risk of CVD.
For example, people who consistently scored well in the seven metrics
had a lower chance of CVD than people who did not. The researchers also
found that improving these metrics over time was related to a lower risk
of CVD in the future.
Xiang Gao, associate professor of nutritional sciences and director of
the Nutritional Epidemiology Lab at Penn State, said the study --
published in
JAMA Network Open -- suggests that people can help influence their risk of CVD in the future.
"In our study population, and probably across the world, there are many
people who have suboptimal or poor heart health," Gao said. "But, even
though most people don't meet the ideal criteria for all seven metrics,
if we can work to improve those measures, the future risk of CVD can
still decrease."
The American Heart Association identified the seven health metrics as
the most important predictors of heart health. They include four
behaviors that people have control over and three biometrics that should
be kept at healthy levels.
The modifiable behaviors include not smoking, maintaining a healthy
weight, eating healthy, and staying physically active. The bio-metrics
are blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar.
Each metric has a poor, intermediate, or ideal score. For example,
smoking regularly would be considered 'poor,' smoking within the past 12
months would be 'intermediate,' and never smoking or quitting more than
a year ago would be 'ideal.' Combining the score for all seven metrics
-- 0 for poor, 1 for intermediate and 2 for ideal -- results in an
overall 'cardiovascular health score,' or CHS.
"Only about 2 percent of people in the United States and other countries
meet all the ideal requirements for these seven factors," Gao said.
"This raises the question of whether improving these metrics is related
to lower future risk of CVD. It should, but no one had the data to
support this idea."
A team of researchers used data from 74,701 Chinese adults from the
Kailuan Study. At the beginning of the study, the participants completed
questionnaires about their health and underwent clinical exams and lab
tests three times in the first four years. Across the following five
years, the researchers kept track of any new onset CVD cases in the
participants.
After the information was gathered, the researchers analyzed the data to
see how CHS during the first four years was associated with whether or
not the participants developed CVD subsequently. They found five
distinct patterns -- or trajectories -- that people followed throughout
the four years.
These trajectories included maintaining high, medium, or low CHS, as
well as increasing and decreasing CHS over time. Gao said these
different trajectories were associated with different risks for
developing CVD in the future.
"For example, about 19 percent of participants were able to maintain a
better cardiovascular health score over the four years," Gao said. "We
found that those people had a 79 percent lower chance of developing
heart disease in the future than people who maintained a low
cardiovascular health score."
Gao said they found similar results when they analyzed risk for stroke
and myocardial infarction -- commonly referred to as a heart attack.
"We also examined whether improving cardiovascular health score over
time affected the future risk of CVD," Gao said. "We found that
improvement of overall cardiovascular health over time-related to lower
future CVD in this population, even for those with poor cardiovascular
health status at the beginning of the study."
Additionally, the researchers were curious about whether one health
measure was more important than the others. They ran repeated tests,
removing a different, single health measure each time. They found that
the scores still predicted future CVD risk in similar ways.
"This suggests that overall cardiovascular health is still the most
important thing and that one factor isn't more important than the
others," Gao said. "It also helps confirm that these seven metrics are
valid and a very useful tool for developing a strategy for
cardiovascular disease prevention."
Source: Eurekalert
