Health & Medicine - Posted by Marla Paul-Northwestern on Monday, November 15, 2010 17:41 - 2 Comments 
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(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Heart health: Behavior trumps genetics
The majority of young adults who adopt healthy lifestyle behaviors, including no smoking, low or no alcohol intake, weight control, physical activity, and a healthy diet are able to maintain a low cardiovascular risk profile in middle age. (Credit: iStockphoto)
NORTHWESTERN (US) — A healthy lifestyle has more impact than genetics on cardiovascular health, according to two new studies.
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The majority of people who adopt healthy lifestyle behaviors in young adulthood maintain a low cardiovascular risk profile in middle age.
The five most important behaviors are not smoking, low or no alcohol intake, weight control, physical activity, and a healthy diet.
“Health behaviors can trump a lot of your genetics,” says Donald Lloyd-Jones, chair and professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University.
“This research shows people have control over their heart health. The earlier they start making healthy choices, the more likely they are to maintain a low-risk profile for heart disease.”
Many young adults who have a low-risk profile for heart disease, often tip into the high-risk category by middle age with high blood pressure, high cholesterol and excess weight, as a result of lifestyle, the first study found.
But more than half of the young adults who followed the five healthy lifestyle factors for 20 years were able to maintain their low-risk profile for heart disease though middle age.
“This means it is very important to adopt a healthy lifestyle at a younger age, because it will impact you later on,” explains Kiang Liu, professor of preventive medicine and lead author of the study.
Adults who reach middle age with a low-risk profile for heart disease garner big benefits: they will live much longer, have a better quality of life, and generate lower Medicare bills.
The study followed 2,336 black and white participants, ages 18 to 30 at baseline, for 20 years. Researchers tracked participants’ diet, physical activity, alcohol consumption, smoking, weight, blood pressure and glucose levels at the baseline year, year seven and year 20.
The participants are part of the CARDIA (Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults) multi-center longitudinal study sponsored by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.
After 20 years, the prevalence of a low-risk profile was 60 percent for participants who followed all five healthy lifestyle factors, 37 percent for four factors, 30 percent for three factors, 17 percent for two, and 6 percent for one or zero. The results were similar for men only, women only, black only, and white only.
“From a public health point of view, this shows we should put more emphasis on promoting a healthy lifestyle in young adulthood,” Liu says.
“We need to educate and encourage younger people to do this now, so they’ll benefit when they get older.”
The second study examined three generations of families from the Framingham Heart Study to determine the heritability of cardiovascular health.
Heritability includes a combination of genetic factors and the effects of a shared environment such as the types of foods that are served in a family.
Only a small percentage of the United States population—8 percent—has ideal levels of all the risk factors for cardiovascular health at middle age.
The study found that only a small proportion of cardiovascular health is passed from parent to child; instead, it appears that the majority of cardiovascular health is due to lifestyle and healthy behaviors.
“What you do and how you live is going to have a larger impact on whether you are in ideal cardiovascular health than your genes or how you were raised,” says Norrina Allen, the lead study author and a postdoctoral fellow in preventive medicine.
The study looked at three generations of families including 7,535 people at age 40 and a separate group of 8,920 people at age 50. The goal was to see who was in ideal cardiovascular health at these two critical periods in middle age.
Both studies build on previous research from the department of preventive medicine that has provided the core for the national definition of cardiovascular health over the past decade, notes Lloyd-Jones.
“We really need to encourage individuals to improve their behavior and lifestyle and create a public health environment so people can make healthy choices,” Lloyd-Jones says.
“We need to make it possible for people to walk more and safely in their neighborhoods and buy fresh affordable fruit and vegetables in the local grocery store. We need physical activity back in schools, widely applied indoor smoking bans and reduced sodium content in the processed foods we eat.
“We also need to educate people to reduce their calorie intake. It’s a partnership between individuals making behavior changes but also public health changes that will improve the environment and allow people to make those healthy choices.”
More news from Northwestern University: www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/index.html
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2 Comments
Uncle B
Uncle A
You missed the message Uncle B!
The article, as its title states, is about heart health and how individual behavior may be more important than genetics in the development of cardiovascular disease.
It has nothing to do with your fear of China and of being unable to drive your big american car!
There is no doubt about the terrible pollution in China, and they have little concern for their people by western standards. But this could change quickly since they have complete control over their population. Additionally, China is a world leader in the development of solar cell and alternative energy implementation. In the future they may not need the global oil that you say ‘belongs’ to your country.
As to the U.S.A. being the most progressive society on Earth – you are being ridiculous!
I think that any U.S. citizen should be extremely concerned about their own rights and freedoms as they are made to be oil dependant because of the corporate lobbying and manipulation of Federal, State, and County laws by oil companies. It’s all about profit, and many of your citizens are just as limited in their choices as those helpless individuals in China.
Finally, I should think that many U.S. citizens will die prematurely of obesity linked diseases anyway, and long before ‘your’ oil peaks.
our arch-enemy, China, may be doing away with themselves as we speak! Pollution in Beijing is the equivalent of smoking three packs of cigarettes a day! Give China another thirty years ans see if they stillhave enough population to compete for our world’s finite oil supply! The Oil belongs to the U.S.A. the most progressive society on earth and the Asian will probably poison themselves with air pollution long before their demands make any difference in our supply!