Simple ways if you do them all to slash heart risks....

Thursday, 10-23-2014

A month ago Newsmax and others reported on a study that found that people who just did five good health practices were MUCH less likely to have heart attacks than people who did none of them. 

The study was done by Agneta Akesson, associate professor at the Institute of Environmental Medicine in the Karolinska Institute in Solna, Sweden.

9.6 % of those who did none of the 5 good health habits had heart attacks during the study. About one in ten.

But only 1.4 % of those who did all five of the health habits had heart attacks. About one in 70!

The five good health practices were:

1.  Don’t smoke.   (We now know this is even more effective if you also make a strong special effort to avoid second hand smoke AND eCigarette vapors and avoid using nicotine itself as both the smoke and the nicotine are harmful to the heart AND can trigger heart attacks in people who would otherwise not had them.)

2.  Make a special effort to drink no more than 7 drinks a week or an average of one a day.   This is a light moderate intake.  (Closer to 10 or 11 drinks a week may be OK but only for younger men who are not overweight and have small waists and exercise regularly.  The extra 3 or 4 drinks a week tend to cause fat gain.  So if that occurs, 7 drinks a week or bit less is better.)

3.  Eat in a healthful way.  (They looked at those who ate more fruits, vegetables, nuts, and reduced-fat dairy and far less of less health OK foods and drinks. 

They didn’t look at those who ate 6 or more servings a day of organic vegetables, one or two servings of organic fruit a day,

AND who drank zero soft drinks, ate zero hydrogenated oils, no refined grains or very much whole grains, and who avoided packaged desserts and dinners and snacks made of mostly those things or oils high in omega 6.

Had they found people who followed that eating style the separate evidence suggests the rate of heart attack likely would have been as much as 10 times less as each of those foods and drinks  they avoid CAUSE heart attacks;

AND eating that much vegetables and fruit each day has been shown to cut the death rate of people who do both well over 43% including cutting the death rate from heart attacks and strokes nearly that much!

4.  They did some kind of regular exercise several days each week.  (We now know that one or two brief sessions of effective strength training such as 15 or 20 minutes of superslow strength training a week and three or four 10 to 20 minute sessions of gradually built up to very vigorous cardio for brief period separated by rests or easier activity each week plus some more moderate activity such as walking when you have the opportunity works well.  It is both more reliably doable for more people than lots of walking and more effective. 

The ideal if you have time for it is to do both.  But the shorter and more vigorous sessions are more effective and far easier for most people to do.)

5.  They were not badly overweight or obese. (This means they had been following these health protective practices for a while since eating badly and not exercising causes people to gain excess fat-- while people who do eat healthfully and exercise regularly escape the worst causes of gaining excess fat. 

But if you are too fat now and you do begin to do a good job with healthful eating, NOT eating or drinking the bad and harmful foods and drinks, and you cut back alcohol to low moderate if it has been more, you get two wonderful benefits, you get most of the protection right away and most of your excess fat will gradually go away. 

Making it all go away or making it go away faster takes a lot more work.  But many people have lost most of their excess fat and kept it off with just these lifestyle upgrades.)