Important Facts You Should Know

“Your chances for having heart disease and a heart attack get higher as your body mass index (BMI) increases. Obesity also can lead to congestive heart failure, a serious condition in which the heart can’t pump enough blood to meet your body’s needs.”

Source:
(National Heart Lung and Blood Institute. Overweight and Obesity-Related Health Problems in Adults.)

“One in three adults in the U.S. has high blood pressure. About 30 percent of them don’t know they have it.

Source: (American Heart Association. 2008. Am I at Risk)

Controllable Risk Factors (for High Blood Pressure)

Obesity — People with a body mass index (BMI) of 30.0 or higher are more likely to develop high blood pressure.

Eating too much salt — A high sodium intake increases blood pressure in some people.

Drinking too much alcohol — Heavy and regular use of alcohol can increase blood pressure dramatically.

Lack of physical activity — An inactive lifestyle makes it easier to become overweight and increases the chance of high blood pressure.

Stress — This is often mentioned as a risk factor, but stress levels are hard to measure, and responses to stress vary from person to person.

Exercise: The More You Do, The Better!

Heart disease is the number one killer of American men and women, according to the American Heart Association. A study recently published in the journal Circulation shows that even a small amount of exercise can reduce the risk of heart failure and heart disease. However, the study shows that more exercise is consistent with a lower risk of cardiovascular problems.

The researchers followed over 21,000 subjects for nearly two decades, surveying their body weight, physical activity, fitness, and heart functioning. Even the smallest amount of physical activity was consistent with a lower risk of heart failure: people who exercised one to three times per month had an 17% decreased risk of heart failure. However, when subjects exercised more, they benefited more: exercising five days per week led to a 36% reduction in heart failure events. The more exercise subjects got, their risk of cardiac events decreased progressively and steadily.

Source:
IHRSA Health eReview; Volume 6, Issue 3

Moderate Weight Loss Reduces Risk of Heart Disease

Evidence shows that even a moderate weight reduction in obese people could save them a lifetime of health problems, especially heart disease. An estimated 50 million Americans have the potentially serious metabolic syndrome, a clustering of risk factors that leads to heart disease.

Doctors at the Methodist DeBakey Heart & Vascular Center in Houston have demonstrated a significant motivation to drop even a modest amount of weight. That is good news when America is facing an epidemic of obesity.

“Obesity appears to be the central component of the metabolic syndrome. Our study have shown that weight loss of as little as 6.5 percent in individuals with the disease results in substantial reductions in blood pressure, glucose, triglycerides and total cholesterol, all factors that lead to heart disease,” said Christie Ballantyne, M.D., director of the Center for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention at the Methodist DeBakey Heart & Vascular Center and Baylor College of Medicine. “These impressive results occur early in the weight loss, well before individuals even begin to approach their ideal body weight.”

Every risk factor of the metabolic syndrome can be tied to increased risk for heart disease. However, research shows that all risk factors were reduced by even moderate weight loss, and equivalent benefits from medications may have required three different drugs for blood pressure, lipids and glucose. Continued weight loss shows significant improvements in both blood pressure and triglycerides.

The study demonstrates that weight loss is an effective tool to lessen the cardiovascular risk factors associated with the metabolic syndrome, and therefore should be the first option when treating the disease.

Source:
IHRSA and Star Trac Health Care Report

Waist Size Found To Be A Predictor Of Heart Failure In Both Men And Women

Adding to the growing evidence that a person’s waist size is an important indicator of heart health, a study led by investigators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) has found that larger waist circumference is associated with increased risk of heart failure in middle-aged and older populations of men and women.

The findings, published online in the April 7 Rapid Access Report of the journal Circulation: Heart Failure, showed that increased waist size was a predictor of heart failure even when measurements of body mass index (BMI) fell within the normal range.

“Currently, 66 percent of adults in the United States are overweight or obese,” explains Emily Levitan, ScD, the study’s first author and a Research Fellow in the Cardiovascular Epidemiology Research Unit at BIDMC. “Knowing that the prevalence of heart failure increased between 1989 and 1999, we wanted to better understand if and how this increase in obesity was contributing to these rising figures.”

A life-threatening condition that develops when the heart can no longer pump enough blood to meet the body’s needs, heart failure (also known as congestive heart failure) is usually caused by existing cardiac conditions, including high blood pressure and coronary artery disease. Heart failure is the leading cause of hospitalization among patients 65 and older, and is characterized by such symptoms as fatigue and weakness, difficulty walking, rapid or irregular heartbeat, and persistent cough or wheezing.

The researchers examined two Swedish population-based studies, the Swedish Mammography Cohort (made up of 36,873 women aged 48 to 83) and the Cohort of Swedish Men (43,487 men aged 45 to 79) who responded to questionnaires asking for information about their height, weight and waist circumference. Over a seven-year period between January 1998 and December 2004 the researchers reported 382 first-time heart-failure events among the women (including 357 hospital admissions and 25 deaths) and 718 first-time heart-failure events among men (accounting for 679 hospital admissions and 39 deaths.)

Their analysis found that based on the answers provided by the study participants, 34 percent of the women were overweight and 11 percent were obese, while 46 percent of the men were overweight and 10 percent were obese.

“By any measure BMI, waist circumference, waist to hip ratio or waist to height ratio our findings showed that excess body weight was associated with higher rates of heart failure,” explains Levitan.

Further breakdown of the numbers showed that among the women with a BMI of 25 (within the normal range), a 10-centimeter higher waist measurement was associated with a 15 percent higher heart failure rate; women with a BMI of 30 had an 18 percent increased heart failure rate. In men with a BMI of 25, a 10-centimeter higher waist circumference was associated with a 16 percent higher heart failure rate; the rate increased to 18 percent when men’s BMI increased to 30.

Furthermore, adds Levitan, among the men, each one-unit increase in BMI was associated with a four percent higher heart failure rate, no matter what the man’s waist size. In women, she adds, BMI was only associated with increased heart failure rates among the subjects with the largest waists. Finally, the authors found that the association between BMI and heart-failure events declined with age, suggesting that the younger the person, the greater the impact of weight to heart health.

“This study reinforces the importance of maintaining a healthy weight,” says Levitan. “Previous research has looked at various types of heart disease and related health issues, and no matter the particulars of the study, they’ve all been pretty consistent in determining that excess body weight increases a person’s risk of heart disease.”

Study coauthors include BIDMC investigators Murray A. Mittleman, MD, DrPH (senior author), Amy Z. Yang, BA and Alicja Wok, DrMedSci.

The study was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Swedish Research Council and the Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education.

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center is a patient care, research and teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School and consistently ranks in the top four in National Institutes of Health funding among independent hospitals nationwide. BIDMC is a clinical partner of the Joslin Diabetes Center and a research partner of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center. BIDMC is the official hospital of the Boston Red Sox.

Source:
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

Men Who Start Exercising in Midlife Live Longer

Exercise recommendations from the government advise that everyone be active, from children and teenagers to adults and older adults – even people with disabilities and chronic conditions are encouraged to be active within their capabilities. In an ideal world, everyone would make exercise a lifelong habit, however some people have not yet caught on. However, a new Swedish study shows that it’s never too late to begin exercising. Although the benefits of an active life are greater if one starts earlier, science shows that starting late is much better than never.

For the study, researchers collected data on 2,205 men who were 50 years old and then followed them for 35 years. Each time, they were surveyed about physical activity, weight, blood pressure, cholesterol levels, smoking habits and alcohol use. Results showed that men who led sedentary lives were most likely to die during the follow-up period. In fact, men who exercised the most lived, on average, 2.5 years longer. Also, amongst previously sedentary men who began to exercise at 50, mortality rates were originally high, but after exercising for 10 years, their mortality rates dropped to nearly equal those of their more active peers.

Source:
Byberg L, et al. (2009). Total mortality after changes in leisure time physical activity in 50 year old men: 35 year follow-up of population based cohort. British Medical Journal, epub.