Being active and getting enough sleep are just two of eight healthy habits that could help you avoid heart disease or stroke, or else decrease your risk if you have already been diagnosed with cardiovascular problems.
The American Heart Association announced the habits, known as , in 2022 to boost heart health in the US. They include adults getting 7 to 9 hours of sleep a night; 2.5 hours of moderate physical activity per week; not smoking; eating healthful foods; maintaining a healthy weight; and controlling their cholesterol, blood sugar and blood pressure levels.
To evaluate the habits鈥� effectiveness at both preventing heart-related problems in the general population and in those already diagnosed with cardiovascular issues, at Hillel Yaffe Medical Center in Israel and his colleagues assessed data from 25,359 people in the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2009-2018, of whom 10.2 per cent had cardiovascular disease.
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The researchers looked at survey responses as to whether the people followed the eight habits, from which they created a score from 0 to 100 for each habit and each person, with higher scores being healthier.
鈥淲e saw that people with cardiovascular diseases or non-cardiovascular diseases have worse Life鈥檚 Essential 8 scores regardless of ethnicity, age, gender or socioeconomic status,鈥� says Kobo.
For every 10-point score increase, there was a reduction of between 17 and 27 per cent in deaths from all causes and those from cardiovascular disease specifically during the study period, both in people with and without cardiovascular disease. 鈥淲e saw that the score can predict mortality,鈥� says Kobo.
The lifestyle data was self-reported so isn鈥檛 as reliable as information collected by a healthcare professional, says Kobo. Regardless, he thinks Life鈥檚 Essential 8 is a good framework for physicians to use when assessing someone鈥檚 health.
It can also be used by individuals, he says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 easy to understand,鈥� says Kobo. 鈥淒o most of it, or some of it, because no one is perfect.鈥�
鈥淭his large-scale cross-sectional study re-emphasises the relevance of cardiovascular risk factors both in people who do, as well as those who do not, tell us that they have a history of cardiovascular disease,鈥� says at the University of Oxford. 鈥淎ddressing high cholesterol and high blood pressure, as well as other components in Life鈥檚 Essential 8, remains paramount to saving more lives.鈥�
Journal of Cardiology
