Living free of heart disease

Posted on Sun, 16 Dec 12

Just how common is heart disease, what is your risk, and how can you live free of disease? A new study sheds some light.

To see what the risk of developing cardiovascular disease is over people’s lifetime the data from a number of large studies that have assessed heart disease risk factors over many years was analyzed. This level of information has not been available until now.

Heart diseases studied included both fatal and nonfatal coronary heart disease, stroke, congestive heart failure, and other heart disease related deaths.

Key findings from the study were:

• The average risk of heart disease after age 45 years was 60.3% for men and 55.6% for women.

• People with multiple risk factors (high blood pressure, who smoke, high cholesterol or diabetes) had a much higher risk.

• And those with no risk factors lived on average 14 years longer free of heart disease than people with just 2 risk factors.

• However, lifetime heart disease risk was still very high, 30% in men and women even with an optimal risk factor profile.

It’s likely that looking at broader lifestyle related risk factors such as diet, exercise, stress management and social support would produce more meaningful insight than cholesterol and blood pressure, but nonetheless staying healthy appears to add well over a decade of disease-free years to your life.

Reference:

Wilkins JT, Ning H, Berry J, Zhao L, Dyer AR, Lloyd-Jones DM. Lifetime risk and years lived free of total cardiovascular disease. JAMA. 2012 Nov 7;308(17):1795-801. doi: 10.1001/jama.2012.14312.