Lifestyle Paths to Heart Disease

Lifestyle choices such as poor diet, lack of exercise, smoking and excessive drinking are lifestyle paths to heart disease. Switching over to good lifestyle habits helps the heart.

Our heart is not just a pumping machine – it’s a living organ consisting of millions of organized cells functioning to deliver blood to the organs of the body. The blood carries oxygen and nutrients necessary for the optimal functioning of the body including the heart itself. The heart beats around 70 times per minute on an average, pumping about 2,000 gallons of blood per day.

Heart diseases, medically termed as cardiovascular diseases, encompasses various conditions affecting the heart muscle, arteries, valves, lining or electrical system. The more common types of heart disease associated with lifestyle choices are:

Coronary heart disease – Equated with coronary artery disease (CAD), it refers to the tendency to form plaque in the arteries (atherosclerosis). CAD can cause chest pressure and shortness of breath resulting in pain (angina). This is the leading cause of myocardial infarction, simply known as, ‘heart attack’.

Dilated cardiomyopathy – It is a disease where the heart muscle becomes weak and the heart chambers dilate releasing more blood with each beat. Excessive alcohol intake and high blood pressure contribute significantly to this disease.

Myocardial ischemia – In this disease, the blood supply to the muscular wall of the heart decreases, causing the heart muscles to function improperly due to low oxygen levels. Angina is a symptom of myocardial ischemia. A Danish study found that high blood pressure, BMI of more than 27, diabetes and smoking were the potential risk factors for this disease.

Hypertensive heart disease – Hypertensive heart disease occurs because of high blood pressure. The heart has to work harder to pump against the increased pressure in blood vessels. This causes the muscle to thicken and may lead to angina, arrhythmia, heart attack, stroke or sudden death.

Cardiac arrhythmia – Arrhythmia is the result of malfunction or disruption in the timing of heart beats. The heart beats either too quickly, or too slowly, or irregularly. According to the American Heart Association about 780,000 people seek medical attention each year for cardiac arrhythmia.

Do women get heart disease? Of course they do. Both, men and women are affected by heart disease. Men, however, tend to develop the disease earlier than women. This may be due to the protective effect of estrogen abundantly present in women. But the fact remains that heart disease is the number one killer worldwide for women. A report from the 2010 World Congress of Cardiology in Beijing reveals that heart disease kills more women than cancers, AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria put together, and eighty percent of heart disease deaths in women occur in developing countries.

You may wonder what connection getting heart disease has with your lifestyle. An important INTERHEART study conducted in 52 countries identified nine high risk factors for heart disease, especially heart attack. These risk factors include smoking, cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, diet, physical activity, alcohol consumption and psychosocial factors. Needless to say, all of these risk factors are associated with lifestyle choices. They found that 95 percent of heart disease is completely preventable through lifestyle changes.

Not only is heart disease preventable through lifestyle changes but it can also be reversed. A randomized, controlled trial from California suggests that comprehensive lifestyle changes may be able to reverse coronary heart disease after only one year without the use of lipid-lowering drugs.