Strategies to Promote Heart Health
Provided by American Council on Exercise
February is American Heart Month, a designation intended to remind people to
focus on improving their cardiovascular health. What are
the best ways to prevent cardiovascular disease? Can we
make up for the sins of our youth by adopting a healthy lifestyle later in
life? What is the best antidote for heart disease? This blog provides
ideas and inspiration for helping you move more and be heart healthy.
Three Types of Prevention
According to the most recent statistics from the American Heart
Association, in 2020 nearly 127.9 million Americans ages 20 years and
older were affected by cardiovascular disease (CVD), which includes coronary
heart disease, heart failure, stroke and hypertension. That
number represents nearly 50% of that age group. Since
1910, with the exception of 1918–1920 when there was a worldwide
influenza pandemic, the most common cause of mortality among American
adults each year has been CVD. To combat the epidemic of
CVD, three categories of preventative strategies have been developed:
·
Measures that promote healthy lifestyle
behaviors that will prevent risk factors for CVD from ever arising in
the first place
·
Actions taken to treat existing risk
factors, such as increasing physical-activity levels to lower known CVD risk
factors like type 2 diabetes and hypertension
·
Measures taken to prevent recurrent CVD-related
events, such as attending programs like cardiac rehabilitation that are
designed to positively modify lifestyle behaviors and reduce the
likelihood of experiencing a future heart attack
The Importance of Starting Early
It should be no secret that bad habits, such as smoking,
physical inactivity and poor diet, contribute to the development
of numerous CVD risk factors, including obesity, high
cholesterol, hypertension and type 2 diabetes. Adhering to a
healthy lifestyle reduces the likelihood of developing these risk
factors earlier in life and lowering lifetime risk for heart
disease.
As an example, individuals who reach 50 years of age without any known risk factors have a markedly lower lifetime risk
of CVD. Men and women with two or more CVD risk factors have a lifetime
risk of 68.9% and 50.2%, respectively. By comparison, men and women with no CVD
risk factors have a lifetime risk for CVD of 5.2% and 8.2%, respectively.
In addition, these same researchers report that men and women who are
risk-factor free by the time they reach age 50 live approximately eight to
10 years longer than their same-aged counterparts who have two or more CVD risk
factors. These research findings truly underscore the power
of risk-factor prevention.
It’s Never Too Late to Start Making Positive Changes
While ideally everyone would reach age 50 without the burden of
CVD risk factors, the more realistic scenario is that most
individuals in our society will arrive at that age
with numerous CVD risk factors in tow as the result of poor
health choices made throughout their lives. Now what? Is there any chance for
redemption? Next, let’s examine some inspirational
strategies highlighting that it’s never too late to get
started.
Eliminate CVD risk factors with the right volume of exercise: Despite
current estimates indicating that more than 40% of American adults have obesity, a substantial portion of
these individuals are essentially metabolically healthy. These
individuals are often referred to as “metabolically healthy but
having obesity” (MHO), meaning that their blood pressure,
blood lipids and blood glucose profiles are all within normal and healthy
ranges even though they have obesity. Individuals with MHO are
more resistant to the adverse CVD-related consequences than are those who are
considered to have “metabolically abnormal
obesity” (MAO), meaning they have elevated levels of the above
measures. For instance, it has been shown that risk
of CVD mortality is 76% lower in those who are considered to have
MHO when compared to those who are considered to have MAO.
The right volume of exercise can help individuals move from
having MAO to MHO, as it can help to eliminate various CVD risk
factors, including high blood pressure, abnormal blood lipids and
elevated blood glucose. Some of my previous research has demonstrated that a
greater volume of personalized exercise is the key to risk-factor
elimination, as individuals who performed approximately five hours per week of
exercise were nearly 12 times more likely to eliminate CVD
risk factors and transition to having MHO than those individuals who only
performed one hour per week of exercise.
The ultimate heart-disease antidote is better cardiorespiratory fitness: While
hypertension, high cholesterol and obesity undoubtedly contribute to
heart-disease risk, the most powerful predictor of heart health is
cardiorespiratory fitness. In fact, low levels of
cardiorespiratory fitness better predict an individual’s risk of
developing heart disease and heart-disease mortality compared to the previously
mentioned CVD risk factors.
So, just how important is cardiorespiratory fitness to
overall health? One study showed that if we could
eradicate low cardiorespiratory fitness across
the population, more premature deaths would be avoided, including those
from CVD, when compared to deaths that could be prevented
by eliminating traditional risk factors, such as obesity, smoking,
hypertension, high cholesterol and type 2 diabetes.
Given these exciting facts, here are a couple of evidence-based ideas
for improving cardiorespiratory fitness. Previous ACE-sponsored
research has shown that personalized exercise programming that
adheres to the ACE Integrated Fitness Training® Model consistently
improves cardiorespiratory fitness by 15% in most individuals. Similarly,
another ACE-sponsored study showed that personalized reduced-exertion
high-intensity interval training (REHIT) increased individuals’ cardiorespiratory
fitness by 12%. Visit these links to learn more:
·
Does the ACE Integrated Fitness Training® Model Enhance
Training Efficacy and Responsiveness?
·
What Are the Acute and Chronic Responses to Reduced-exertion
High-intensity Training
The improvements seen in this research provide substantial
heart-health protection, as for each 10% improvement in cardiorespiratory
fitness, there is a corresponding 15% reduction in the risk for mortality
from CVD. Furthermore, an approximately 10% increase in cardiorespiratory
fitness has also been linked in previous studies to an increase in lifespan by about two years.
Embracing healthy habits early in life that thwart risk factors for CVD from
ever arising in the first place is undoubtedly your best strategy for avoiding
heart disease. Nevertheless, it is reassuring to know that it is never too late
to improve your cardiorespiratory fitness with structured exercise
and by adopting healthy lifestyle behaviors at any
age.
Author
Lance C. Dalleck, PhD
Contributor
Lance C. Dalleck, PhD, is a professor of Exercise
and Sport Science at Western Colorado University. His research interests
include improving exercise performance and health outcomes through
evidence-based practice, quantifying the energy expenditure of outdoor and
non-traditional types of physical activity, and studying historical
perspectives in health, fitness and exercise physiology. Dr. Dalleck is a member of the ACE Scientific Advisory
Panel.
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