Combining healthy habits lowers heart disease risk

A new medical study lends strong support to the commonsense notion that people who have lots of  healthy lifestyle habits have a lower risk of developing heart disease.

A study reported in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association reports that middle-aged and older men who consistently practiced five healthy lifestyle behaviors during a 16-year period had a much lower risk of developing heart disease than men who had fewer healthy habits.  Even those receiving treatment for high blood pressure or high cholesterol had a reduction in their risk of heart disease.

There are many healthy habits associated with a lower risk of heart disease.  This particular study looked at the health impact of combining five specific lifestyle factors:

• not smoking
• maintaining a body mass index (BMI) of less than 25 kg/m
• exercising daily for at least 30 minutes
• drinking alcohol in moderation, defined as an average of two or fewer drinks a day  (nondrinkers were not included)
• eating healthfully

A healthy diet emphasizes lots of fruits and vegetables, cereal fiber, chicken and fish, nuts, legumes, and low trans and saturated fats.

The study looked at 42,847 men, ages 40 to 75, who were free from chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer at the start of the study. Starting in 1986, the participants provided information on their medical condition and health habits every two years through self-administered questionnaires. Twenty-one percent of the men took medications for high blood pressure or high cholesterol.

The study found that 2,183 of the men had a heart attack or developed fatal coronary heart disease during the 16-year period.

However, men who had all five healthy habits had an 87 percent lower risk for coronary heart disease, compared to men who had none of the beneficial lifestyle factors.  Researchers found that 62 percent of heart attacks may have been prevented if all men in the study had adopted all five lifestyle factors.

The big news from the study was the benefit of adopting healthy habits among men with health conditions that would put them at higher risk for heart problems.  Among men taking medications for high blood pressure or high cholesterol, those who adopted two or more beneficial habits had a 27 percent lower risk of coronary heart disease compared with those who did not.

In essence, the study shows that it’s never too late to make changes to become healthier.   A person can still achieve significant benefit by making changes in middle age or later in life.

This study was funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health and an Established Investigator Award from the American Heart Association.