Save Your Heart!

Heart disease doesn’t have to be a one-way street—it can often be reversed:

• Including if it’s in the early stages, the sort you probably haven’t even noticed yet if you’re not paying close attention
• Including if it’s in advanced stages; as a general rule of thumb, if it’s still beating, it can still get better if treated better

But how?

Lifestyle first

Yes, sometimes drugs may be necessary. Yes, sometimes surgery may be necessary.

But for most people most of the time? Lifestyle can go a very long way.

See: Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Lifestyle Modifications on Coronary and Carotid Atherosclerotic Burden

To accomplish this, the American Heart Association champions its “Life’s Essential 8” framework, which can be broken down as follows:

• Eating better
  • In particular, diets with the strongest evidence include the Mediterranean diet, the DASH diet (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) which is basically a modified Mediterranean diet, and whole foods vegan, vegetarian, or pescatarian diets, which emphasize fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, healthy fats like olive oil, while limiting processed foods, added sugars, and saturated fats.
    • See for example: A New Contender For “Best Diet For Heart & Brain” In Aging
• Being more active
  • Especially getting the much talked-about 150 minutes per week of moderate exercise (of the kind your fitness tracker will count as such; brisk walking is great for this) or MET-adjusted other exercises (e.g. if you are running, chances are you’ll be in a higher heartrate zone, so each 1 minute there may count for 2 minutes of moderate exercise, for example).
    • Consider also this paradox that isn’t, after all, a paradox (it’s resolved quite simply by science): How Many Heartbeats Do You Have Left?
• Quitting smoking
  • Obviously this is only a thing if you smoke already, but if you do the quitting should be your top priority unless your doctor advises you otherwise (rare and strange if that happens, but occasionally something else may take priority).
    • See also: Addiction Myths That Are Hard To Quit
• Getting healthy sleep
  • Above all, sleep regularity is critical, as this has a huge impact (positive or negative, per how regular or irregular your sleep is) on heart health.
    • Learn more: How Regularity Of Sleep Can Be Even More Important Than Duration ← A recent, large (n=72,269) 8-year prospective* observational study of adults aged 40-79 found a strong association between irregular sleep and major cardiovascular events, to such an extent that it was worse than undersleeping.
      • *this means they started the study at a given point, and measured what happened for the next eight years—as opposed to a retrospective study, which would look at what had happened during the previous 8 years.
• Managing weight
  • Broadly speaking, more weight puts more strain on the heart. So for many people, losing weight will be heart-positive. That said, for women over 65, an “overweight” BMI is generally protective against all-cause mortality. So, there is a sweet spot, and that sweet spot can move according to other factors.
    • On which note, definitely do also check out: How To Make Your Body Fat Heart-Healthier
• Managing cholesterol
  • Especially if you’re a man, though it’s at the very least still worth keeping an eye on it if you’re a woman.
    • A lot of people get confused by this topic, so if that’s you, hop on over to Demystifying Cholesterol and be confused no longer 🙂
• Managing blood sugars
  • An underestimated one, as many people think of this as a completely separate matter and more to do with diabetes risk. But, “metabolic syndrome” is a thing, and these are all tied together.
    • Read all about it: What Diabetes Does To Your Heart
• Managing blood pressure
  • Just like plumbing is more likely to fail if the water pressure isn’t right (springing a leak if it’s too high, or just not getting water to where it needs to be if it’s too low), the same goes for our own internal plumbing and blood pressure.
    • As for how, see: Hypertension: Factors Far More Relevant Than Salt

Bonus item, not in the AHA’s list but since it’s Valentine’s Day at the time of writing:

How Relationships Affect The Heart (For Better Or For Worse)

Want to learn more?

Arm your library:

• Dr. Dean Ornish’s Program For Reversing Heart Disease – by Dr. Dean Ornish ← quite casual way
• The End of Heart Disease – by Dr. Joel Fuhrman ← the more comprehensive way
• Prevent & Reverse Heart Disease – by Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn ← the “rather extreme but we can’t argue with its effectiveness” way

Take care!