Heart failure risk reduced by 7 healthy habits

Adults who score well on the American Heart Association's Life's Simple 7 checklist are less likely than others to develop heart failure, according to a new study.

Heart failure is growing and heart attacks are declining

Thomson Reuters Posted: Dec 23, 2015 11:22 AM EST | Last Updated: December 23, 2015

Adults who score well on the AmericanHeart Association's Life's Simple 7 checklist are lesslikely than others to develop heart failure, according to a newstudy.

The AHA checklist and calculatorwas developed to educate the public on lifestyle habits thatcan improve heart health and reduce the risk of heart attack andstroke. According to the new results, they may also reduce therisk of heart failure, a long-term condition in which the heartfails to pump enough blood to the rest of the body.

Managing blood pressure is one of items on the American Heart Association's Simple 7 checklist. (Eric Risberg/Associated Press)

Life's Simple 7 includes managing blood pressure andcholesterol, reducing blood sugar, getting physically active,

eating healthy, losing weight and not smoking. Adherence tothese seven strategies is calculated for an overall score of oneto 10.

"The information before was more for coronary heart diseasethere was not much on heart failure," said Dr. Aaron R.Folsom of the University of Minnesota, who was not part of thenew study.

The research team, led by Vanessa Xanthakis of BostonUniversity, followed 3,201 participants in the Framingham

Offspring Study, average age 59, for up to 12 years. During thattime, 188 people developed heart failure.

For each one-point increase in cardiovascular health scoreon the calculator, heart failure risk fell by 23 per cent, theauthors reported in Circulation: Heart Failure.

The AHA is saying it's not enough just to treat risk factorsand think about dealing with them after people develop them, butinstead, the idea is to prevent them in the first place, Folsomtold Reuters Health by phone.

Even though these are well-known prevention strategies,almost nobody achieves all seven ideal factors,particularlydiet, he said.

"Salt intake is overwhelmingly too high," he said.

There are more than three million cases of heart failure inthe U.S. each year.

Once you have heart failure, you have to continue to livewith it, and until recently there were few effective treatments,

Folsom said.

Educating people only goes so far to promote healthybehavior policy changes are more effective, he said.

Creating environments where physical activity is easy to doand controlling the contents of food products can make is easierfor individuals to make healthy choices, said Dr. VeroniqueRoger of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

"Following healthy behaviours is an issue that extends waybeyond the boundaries of the healthcare world," she told ReutersHealth by phone.

"Some of these behaviours really require societal and policyapproaches," Roger said. "We can't be counting on doctors andnurses to make this work."

In the Framingham Offspring Study, the data quality ispristine, but the sample only includes white people of Europeandescent, so other studies should investigate this connectionwith different populations, Roger said.

"Heart failure is growing and heart attacks are declining,"Folsom said. But "that to some extent can be prevented."

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Life's Simple 7, American Heart Association

Cardiovascular Health Status and Incidence of Heart Failure in the Framingham Offspring Study

Heart failure risk reduced by 7 healthy habits

Heart failure is growing and heart attacks are declining

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