Lifestyle Change is the Holy Grail of Preventing Heart Disease

Heart disease is a largely avoidable medical problem, with 80 percent of cardiac conditions being preventable with lifestyle changes and education.

Dr. Stephen Houser, President of the American Heart Association, says the newest frontier in cardiology is identifying a multiplicity of biological, environmental, social, and emotional factors that put an individual at greatest risk for developing heart-related conditions, and then designing personalized treatments based on these factors.

“The future of cardiovascular research is to stop the disease before it starts,” Houser explains. “It sounds simple, but we haven’t really done that. What we’ve done before is that we identify the disease once it exists and do our best to treat it. But the brave new world is to identify the disease you might get before you get it.”

The American Heart Association has defined “ideal cardiovascular health” in terms of seven core health factors and behaviors, adequate physical activity, healthy diet, healthy weight, normal blood pressure, normal blood glucose, low cholesterol, and non-smoking status.

Though these factors are largely controllable, inspiring significant lifestyle changes in those with unhealthy habits remains the greatest obstacle to dramatically decreasing the heart disease mortality rate.

“In cardiovascular disease, unlike with many other diseases, we actually know what works,” said Dr. Janet Wright, executive director of Million Hearts. “The obstacle is doing what works and doing it everywhere and for everyone in a way that works for them. … Behavior change is the Holy Grail.”

In addition to lifestyle changes, many fatal heart attacks – an acute manifestation of heart disease – could be prevented if patients were more aware of cardiac symptoms.

The most common symptoms of heart disease include chest heaviness and tightness that increases with exertion (sometimes accompanied by profuse sweating), heart palpitations (especially ones that are irregular or feel “strange”), and shortness of breath.

Though these symptoms are among the most common, everyone is different, and any pain or discomfort in the chest, back, neck, or arm, especially in relation to exertion, needs to be medically evaluated immediately.

Dr. Warren Wexelman, a cardiologist with NYU Langone School of Medicine and Medical Center and President of the American Heart Association in Brooklyn, says being mindful of the following can save your life or the life of someone you love.

• Take your symptoms seriously.
• Be familiar with whether heart disease runs in your family.
• Get regular exams to determine your degree of risk for heart disease.
• Ask your doctor three important questions: Why am I feeling this way? What do we do about it? What does this mean moving forward?
• Get a customized fitness regimen. “Doctors tell patients to go get exercise, but they don’t tell them how much, what’s right for them, etc.” says Wexelman. “Everyone has an exercise prescription and it’s just like a medication prescription: how often, for how long, what type of exercise and how to get your training heart rate up appropriately.”

Luckily, the American Heart Association is taking steps to explore new ways of making an impact. Rather than simply running ads, they’re forging personal relationships by partnering with local health centers, hair salons and barber shops, churches and synagogues to foster a spirit of community support in making the changes that lead to better heart health.

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