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It seems like there are more studies all the time promoting a change in lifestyle factors to reduce individual risk of heart disease, strokes and other related health problems.

Consumer Reports onHealth recently reported on research from the journal Circulation that crunched the numbers on six different lifestyle factors, finding that collectively they could trim about 40 million heart attacks and strokes among Americans in the next 30 years.

A report from the American Heart Association, the American Diabetes Association and the American Cancer Society found that 75 percent of Americans could benefit from making at least one of these lifestyle changes, and it may be possible to fix a lot of these problems without drugs.

What you can do to cut your risk

You can probably guess what most of the lifestyle factors that have the biggest impact on heart attacks and strokes are: high blood pressure and cholesterol, excess weight, high blood sugar and smoking. In addition to keeping all those numbers in control and quitting smoking if you do so, the study also recommends a daily low-dose aspirin for people who can tolerate it.

The statistics on most of these health factors show that we’re not doing great as a society. About a third of Americans have hypertension, for instance, but fewer than half of them have it under control. About 25 percent of us have high levels of LDL or bad cholesterol, but most people don’t know it. Among those who are treated for high cholesterol, just a third successfully lower their numbers.

About a third of Americans are obese and another third are overweight; the numbers are also skyrocketing among younger people. The number of people with diabetes has doubled in recent decades, and 57 million Americans also have prediabetes, which ups the risk of heart problems even if it never progresses into full-blown diabetes.

While the number of smokers has fallen in the past 40 years or so, 24 percent of adults smoke and 20 percent of teens are likely to take up the habit. And when it comes to aspirin, studies suggest just 14 percent of men and 20 percent of women who would benefit from taking a daily pill are actually doing so.

How these changes could help

According to the Circulation study, each of these lifestyle changes could prevent a large number of heart attacks and strokes:

• Reaching target blood pressure: 6.2 million heart attacks, 7 million strokes
• Improving cholesterol: 9.6 million heart attacks, 3 million strokes
• Losing weight: 7.1 million heart attacks, 1.1 million strokes
• Controlling blood sugar: 4.8 million heart attacks, 0.6 million strokes
• Quitting smoking: 3.3 million heart attacks, 1.4 million strokes
• Taking low-dose aspirin: 3.4 million heart attacks, 0.3 million strokes

None of these are insubstantial numbers, and though they don’t say a lot about your individual risk of having a heart attack or stroke, odds are good the more of these factors you have on your side, the healthier you will be and remain for the long term.

(By Sarah E. White for CalorieLab Calorie Counter News)

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 28th, 2009 and is filed under Diabetes, Obesity health dangers. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. Permalink.