Scientists reveal best ways to protect yourself from heart disease in later life

Introducing eight healthy habits from a young age could slash your chances of developing heart disease in later life, scientists have found.

Researchers analysed how certain risk factors, defined by the American Heart Association (AMA), can significantly impact your risk of cardiovascular disease, which kills almost 500 people every day in the UK.

The new study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that neglecting habits such as healthy eating, sleeping, physical exercise, and nicotine avoidance could put you ten times more at risk of having a heart attack or a stroke later on.

The study’s co-author, Professor Donald Lloyd-Jones, said: “We hope that young adults will focus on their heart health as soon as possible, in order to gain the biggest dividends in longer, healthier lives.

“Our current observation indicates that change matters; improvements in heart health can decrease future risk, and the earlier it is attained and maintained, the better.”

Researchers used ‘life’s essential 8’, AMA’s eight components for optimal cardiovascular health, which include healthy eating, sleep, physical activity, nicotine avoidance, a maintained healthy weight, controlled cholesterol, and managed blood sugar and blood pressure, to assess who was more at risk of getting heart disease.

They looked at the heart health of more than 4,000 young adults between 18 to 30-years-old, and gave them a score out of 100 based on the eight risk factors. The researchers then analysed how their scores changed over the next 20 years, and how that impacted outcomes such as heart attacks or strokes in the 20 years after that.

It found that people who maintained a high score across the 20-year period had a very low risk of developing cardiovascular disease. Participants who maintained a moderate score over that time were twice at risk, and those who went from a moderate score to a low score were 10 times more at risk of having a heart attack or a stroke.

Participants’ scores were given on a 100-point scale, with scores between 0 to 49 deemed to be a low cardiovascular health status, scores between 50 to 79 deemed to be moderate, and those between 80 to 100 deemed to be high.

The study found that each 10-point decrease was associated with a 53 per cent increase in cardiovascular health risk.

Professor Lloyd-Jones said: “While research has begun to characterise cardiovascular health in young adults and its long-term association with premature cardiovascular disease, few studies have examined longitudinal patterns of heart health in young adulthood.”

There are more than 7.6 million people with cardiovascular disease in the UK, which kills more than 170,000 people a year, making up around a quarter of the country’s deaths, according to the British Heart Foundation.

Cardiovascular disease is a blanket term for conditions affecting the heart or blood vessels, including coronary heart disease, where the flow of oxygen-rich blood is reduced, which could lead to a heart attack.

It also includes strokes, when the blood supply to part of the brain is cut off, arterial disease, when there is a blockage in the arteries to the limbs, and aortic disease, which is a condition affecting the aorta.