HealthDay reports, “People who follow seven recommended cardiovascular health behaviors are much less likely to die than those who follow few or none of the behaviors, according to a study that included nearly 45,000 US adults.”
But, the investigators “also found that few adults follow every cardiovascular health behavior recommended by the American Heart Association (AHA), which include: not smoking; eating a healthy diet; having normal cholesterol, blood glucose and total cholesterol levels; being physically active and having normal blood pressure.”
MedPage Today reports, “Meeting all seven criteria could have prevented 59% of all deaths, 64% of those from cardiovascular disease, and 63% of those from ischemic heart disease over a roughly 20-year period,” the researchers found.
The study, online in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that “no more than 2% of US adults achieved all seven goals from 1988 to 2010.”
WebMD reports, “Not surprisingly, the results showed that the more heart-healthy goals people met, the lower their risk of heart disease and death. Meeting a higher number of the heart health targets was also associated with a lower risk of cancer.”
The investigators “found that younger people, women, whites, and people with higher education levels tended to meet more of the heart-healthy goals.”
