Reducing Risk Factors for Your Heart Health

Unfortunately, cardiovascular events such as heart attacks and strokes are the biggest killer in the Western world, so caring for your heart, your vascular system and also maintaining your blood health, is so important, especially as we age.

One quite direct set of stats has been assembled by the British Heart Foundation (BHF), which shows data which puts the whole thing in stark perspective:

Between 7-8 million people in the UK are living with various forms of heart and circulatory disease. According to the BHF, this is around twice as many people living with cancer and Alzheimer’s disease combined. This also costs the NHS around £10 billion every year.

However, death rates from cardiovascular diseases (CV) have dropped enormously over the years. For example, since 1961, the UK death rate has dropped by over 75%!

What are the Types of Cardiovascular Disease?

1/ Coronary Heart Disease is by far the most common and this affects around 10 million people in the UK. It basically occurs when the large coronary arteries of the heart become narrowed, due to a build up of ‘atheroma’ which is a complex fatty deposit that builds up over time. Many believe that this is the result of eating too much cholesterol in the diet, but this has been disproven….it is far more complex than this (see below).

It is also worth mentioning that around 80% of the cholesterol that is found in a blood test, is not as a result of a high fat diet, but rather one’s own propensity to simply produce it ‘endogenously’, in other words, synthesised within the body.

Pain from this blockage can manifest itself as Angina and if a full arterial blockage occurs, this becomes a heart attack or ‘myocardial infarction’ (MI). Those who either have coronary heart disease or a heart attack are more than twice as likely to have a stroke too!

2/  Heart Attack or Myocardial Infarction , is a very serious medical emergency and occurs when the heart struggles to pump blood efficiently in a regular fashion . Lack of blood to the heart can cause irreparable damage to the heart and can be life threatening. Around 30% of MI victims will die from their first attack and this will be the first time that any of them will have realised that they have advanced atherosclerotic plaques in the coronary arteries. Some doctors call this ‘the widow maker’!

Complications from the MI can result in irregular beats or ‘arrythmias,’ which need to be brought under control asap by drugs. The heart’s muscles can be severely damaged, resulting in a heart that can no longer contract properly, thereby starving the rest of the body from oxygenated blood.

3/  Atrial Fibrillation (AF) is one of the most common forms of abnormal heart rhythm and can lead on to stroke too. AF is when the heart loses its regular beat and goes into rapid and irregular beating. This can be brought on by binge drinking, excessive caffeine intake or simply being overweight. Age also is a risk factor too.

It is estimated that around 1.4 million people have been diagnosed with AF and worryingly, that more than 200,000 are living with AF which is undiagnosed! Those who have untreated AF are five times more likely to suffer a stroke and it is a contributing factor to one in five strokes!

4/  Heart Failure is when the heart is simply unable to pump enough blood around the body effectively. It occurs when the heart is either too weak (such as after a heart attack) or simply if it is too ‘stiff.’ It’s a long term condition which worsens over time with no known cure, though some drugs can help the patient live with this condition for many years.

Sufferers can be breathless after little activity, quite tired and also some may have swollen ankles and legs.

The BHF believe that around a million people in the UK are living with heart failure.

5/ Stroke or Cerebrovascular Disease occurs when the blood supply to part of the brain is cut off, causing brain cells to become damaged. It is the fourth biggest cause of deaths in the UK, with more than 100,000 strokes each year, causing 36,000 deaths.

Unfortunately, strokes are the biggest cause of severe disability in the UK, with around 1.3 million people still living in the UK after such a stroke.

A ‘mini stroke,’ known as a TIA (transient ischaemic attack) is due only to a temporary disruption of blood to the brain, but can still cause damage to healthy brain cells.

6/ Vascular Dementia is another condition in which parts of the brain fail to receive enough oxygenated blood over a long time period, resulting in cell death and in turn a brain which is diminishing in its working effectiveness. Memory, concentration, and personality can all be affected.

This form of dementia is responsible for 15,000 deaths in the UK every year, but actually affects around 150,000 people in the UK.

People with a history of heart disease and even type 2 diabetes, have 2-3 times the risk of developing vascular dementia over their lifetime.

So, what are The Risk Factors ?

Our heart beats around 100,000 times every day and pumps around 5 L of blood every minute through a system of blood vessels that is over 60,000 miles long, an impressive task indeed; so preserving our overall cardiovascular health as we age, is critical.

There are a number of so called ‘risk factors’ which all contribute to poor cardiovascular (CV)  health.

Unfortunately, the biggest risk factor is age itself, as it is with so many chronic diseases. Of course, there is nothing any of us can do about this, but we can do a lot to lessen other risks that we can control.

These include lack of activity, smoking, poor diet choices, high measured LDL cholesterol (the so called ‘bad’ cholesterol or LDL-C), stress, obesity, hypertension (high blood pressure) and of course ‘atherosclerosis’ (build up of plaques within the artery walls). These atheroma’s are the precursor to fully fledged coronary heart disease.

Having high blood pressure (hypertension) is the leading cause of CV disease, with around 28% of adults in the UK with hypertension, with half of them not receiving treatment, as this is still undiagnosed.

The takeaway from this particular condition is that around 50% of heart attacks and strokes are linked to high blood pressure. Of course, high BP can be caused by narrowing of the arteries, together with calcification (deposition of calcium), and this can lead further to ‘stiffened’ arteries, which are also related to this narrowing. Stiffness can also be caused by most of the risk factors above and is a slow deterioration in the collagen protein in the walls of the arteries, which importantly gives the arteries their elasticity.

What Can I do to Improve my Heart and overall Cardiovascular Health?

The list is clear and simple, but not all of us find it easy to follow every single one. But they can all add up to a significant improvement to our health. Many are obvious and it is about cutting down on the usual culprits:

• Stop Smoking (currently one in seven people still smoke). Though any kind of smoking is not healthy, even changing from conventional to e-cigarettes is better than nothing.
• Control your weight by eating a sensible, well balanced diet with plenty of fruit and veg which brings in ultra-healthy fibre, plus a host of micronutrients. About two-thirds of us are overweight or obese….and this is getting worse over time too.
• Regular Exercise is the ‘silver bullet’ of our overall wellbeing and this makes an enormous difference to our cardiovascular health in total. Staying active is probably the most important thing we can do as we age. In fact, many younger people too are so sedentary these days compared to the same age group twenty years ago. Many health professionals say that, ‘sitting is the new smoking’. That sums it up quite nicely!
• Controlling your stress levels too can be good for CV health. This is easier said than done but stress can contribute to many chronic ailments and even diseases.
• Sleep is seldom mentioned re heart disease, but like stress, getting too little sleep can have huge negative effects on your health, so again, try and get those eight hours if possible.
• Nutritional Supplements can help too, but only those that have been properly formulated will make a difference to overall heart and cardiovascular health, by making up those nutrients that most of us are still lacking from our daily diet. See separate blog below for the detail.

Relevant blogs:

• Cholesterol-Is it Really that Bad for Us?
• What is Atherosclerosis and how can we combat this disease?
• Which Nutritional Supplements can really help my Heart and Blood Health?
• The Big Myths surrounding Fats, Cholesterol, Exercise and Supplements!