Life Hacks

The Two Worst Things For Cardiac Aging

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The 10almonds Team

What do you think? There are some very reasonable top likely candidates!

Is it ultraprocessed food? It could be, on account of science such as: Advanced glycation end-products (AGEs) and their circulating receptors predict cardiovascular disease mortality in older women

For more on that, see: Are You Eating AGEs?

It it, perhaps, alcohol? There’s a strong argument, as despite the popular myth of the “small glass of red per day”, any amount of alcohol increases mortality risk,, a comprehensive review in “Circulation”, a cardiovascular health journal, has suggested the French Paradox may not be so paradoxical after all, and is likely due to unrelated lifestyle factors, and historic under-reporting of cardiovascular disease by French doctors, and the World Health Organization has declared that the only safe amount of alcohol is zero: WHO: No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health

It’s further relevant that alcohol also increases all-cause mortality at any dose (even “low-risk drinking”): Alcohol Consumption Patterns and Mortality Among Older Adults

For more on that, see: Can We Drink To Good Health? ← this is mostly about red wine and heart health

Could it be red meat? Definitely a fair contender. It’s… Bad:

For more on that, see: The Whys and Hows of Cutting Meats Out Of Your Diet

The very two top worst things

Researchers (Dr. Nazanin Rajai et al.) looked at this very question and found that the two biggest drivers of cardiac aging were…

*drumroll please*

Surprising many, financial strain and food insecurity emerged as the two strongest factors driving accelerated cardiac aging and higher mortality risk, outweighing many traditional clinical risk factors. It was a pretty comprehensive study, a cross-sectional analysis of 280,323 adult patients treated between 2018 and 2023, combining social determinants of health with AI-ECG* data and advanced statistical modeling.

*Dr. Rajai and her team used electrocardiogram technology combined with AI modeling to estimate cardiac age; a higher cardiac age gap means the heart is biologically older than the person**, and thus indicates a greater future cardiovascular risk.

**Notably, “biological age” is often thought of as one thing, but in reality, it’s an amalgam of many things, and different body parts/systems can age differently than others, within the same person’s body. We wrote about this here: Age & Aging: What Can (And Can’t) We Do About It? ← our mythbusting special on this topic

As for the factors that were looked at, this particular study looked at stress, physical activity, social connection, housing instability, financial strain, food insecurity, transportation needs, nutrition, and education.

That said, it’s worth taking into account that the other factors were important too; especially, social factors such as financial strain, housing instability, and physical inactivity predicted mortality risk at levels comparable to—or exceeding—some conventional cardiovascular risk factors.

You can read the paper in full, here: Interplay of Social Determinants of Health and Traditional Risk Factors in Predicting Cardiac Aging

This is consistent with what we wrote about previously, with a list of The Lifestyle Factors That Matter >8 Times More Than Genes

…and upon narrowing it down: 6 Lifestyle Factors To Measurably Reduce Biological Age

…and narrowing it further: Want To Age More Slowly? These 4 Social Factors Count The Most

And in particular, and especially relevant today: Heart Health vs Systemic Stress

As to how to address that? See: The S.T.E.P.S. To A Healthier Heart