Heart problems can affect anybody. The heart is such an essential organ that its proper functioning requires health in so many other areas of the body. This means that heart disease prevention is something anybody, of any age, should take very seriously.
Preventing future heart problems is far preferable to ultimately having to deal with them, kitting your house out with emergency alarms in case of a heart attack, going on medications laden with side effects, having to buy replacement defibs and AEDs, etc. We are probably painting a pretty depressing picture here, but preventing the worst-case scenario is always wise.
Different age groups are, of course, at varying risk of heart disease. However, the thing about ageing is that you do not stay the same age forever, so preventing heart disease when you are young will make it less likely when you eventually make it into a higher-risk age group.
In other words, preventing heart disease is a lifetime’s work. At the same time though, you should bear in mind that it is never too late to make a few lifestyle changes. In fact, this can have a dramatic effect on your chances of developing a heart condition. Depending on what you actually do, it can seriously slash the chances.
The risk factors for heart disease fall into two categories –the unmodifiable ones, and the ones you can change. Some people will always be more at risk of heart disease than others; age being the most obvious thing that puts you at a higher risk, and which you of course cannot change. Nevertheless, the modifiable factors far outnumber the things you cannot change, and lifestyle factors make up a very large proportion of those.
When Are You at Risk?
Before getting on to this, it is worth talking about age a bit more as this will determine what type of lifestyle changes you should most urgently make (as well as how urgent doing something about your heart health might be). If you fall into the riskier age group, it is wise to think even more seriously about your heart health.
So, when are you at risk? Well, everyone is at risk of heart attack or developing a heart-related conditions. As you probably know, older people are more at risk; what you might not know, however, is how it breaks down. Here are some facts and figures that might well give you serious pause for thought:
- Among people in their twenties, only 2.1 in every 100,000 have a heart attack.
- Ten year later, that leaps to 16.9.
- For people in their forties, it is nearly at 100, which is fifty times more likely compared to those in their twenties.
- Fifty is the great threshold age at which heart attacks become statistically more significant. The chances of a heart attack then increase from 18% to 26% between the ages of fifty and seventy.
- Beyond seventy, the chances of a heart attack start to decrease, back down to 18% for those in their seventies and even lower to 12% for those in their eighties.
As you can tell, heart attack risk (and remember there are other heart conditions) doesn’t just increase linearly with age. Instead, it increases exponentially, with a massive leap after you pass fifty. But what are we to make of this decrease in heart attack risk beyond seventy?
To understand this, let us take a closer look at why this is happening. If you make it all the way to seventy without a heart attack, it is likely because your personal risk factors are lower, either because of hereditary factors or because you have already made the type of positive lifestyle choices which we will come on to in the below paragraphs.
There is also the rather grim fact that those who have higher risk factors never make to that age at all, leaving only those with the lower risk factors. As a final point, you are more at risk if you’re a man – but that is, of course, a factor you cannot change.
So while your risk factors are a problem, you can do so much to reduce them. That, however, means positive lifestyle changes – and its best to make these sooner rather than later.
Top Lifestyle Changes for Heart Attack Prevention
So, with that closer look at the reality of heart conditions and the risk factors that cause them covered, let us go over what you can do to slash your risk factors and prevent heart conditions in the future. Some of these might be familiar to you, but their details might be lesser known.
Quit Smoking
You probably know all about this already, so there’s no need to go on too much about how smoking seriously increases your risk of heart disease. Quitting is tough, of course, but there are endless resources to help you out as well as products that can make the struggle easier too.
Reduce Your Cholesterol
Cholesterol is the fat lodged in your arteries and which can cause heart problems. However, it is important to understand in more detail how to lower it. The overarching advice is to reduce your intake of saturated and trans fats.
There is also the difference between low-density cholesterol and high-density lipoprotein. Both are cholesterol, but the former is much worse. You can and should then make an effort to avoid foods that are high in cholesterol, but the following lifestyle changes will also help…
Exercise
You should start to build exercise into your daily or weekly routine. Only do as much as you can manage but bear in mind that how much you can manage can be increased the more you do it. More specifically, focus on aerobic exercise, and remember above all that it is regularity that is key. Nobody is suggesting you become a professional athlete.
Lose Weight
Losing weight means lessening the weight your body must carry around. It therefore also means putting your heart under less strain. A body mass index calculator is invaluable here. You should aim for the green, and more urgently lose weight if you are in red.
Conclusion
As you might have noticed, many of these lifestyle changes can be made at any age, though precisely how to make the changes can be more complicated than you initially think. Nonetheless, by following these tips, you can learn to cut out the risk factors. Moreover, the earlier you do it, the more chance you have of making it past seventy, by which time the risk of heart disease will drop significantly. That is a good age to aim for.
