Heart Disease Prevention
Posted on April 13, 2015
Although losing weight may benefit the factors of heart disease, losing weight through diet alone is not the most beneficial intervention. Exercise intervention is a superior way to approach heart health, and if weigh-loss is a goal, it will help with that as well.
Heart disease is the leading cause of death globally and, believe it or not, it is largely preventable. The everyday lifestyle choices that we make play a huge role in our heart health outcomes. Smoking, alcohol, obesity and inactivity are just a few of the risk factors, but today I want to focus on the last 2. Being overweight makes our heart work harder, even when resting, so that over time it loses it’s ability to relax and perform its function of pumping blood throughout the body. Based on this statement, it’s obvious that losing weight will have positive effects on the health of our hearts. But is losing weight alone the best preventative measure? Let’s first take a look at the facts about heart disease.
Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) is a cardiovascular disease affecting the heart and its coronary arteries. It involves narrowing and blockages in the arteries that deliver blood and oxygen to the heart itself. If there’s a complete blockage in one or more of the heart’s arteries, the heart will receive no oxygen leading to irreversible damage of the heart tissue. This is what we all know as a heart attack and if the blockage is not dealt with right away, it will cause death.
Blockage in the coronary arteries is referred to as atheroscrlerosis, which is a narrowing of the arteries due to formation of plaque made up of mainly calcium deposits, fatty deposits and inflammatory cells. A main risk factor is a high blood ratio of “bad” cholesterol to “good” cholesterol. Even with just a basic knowledge of nutrition, it’s easy to see how being overweight and eating fatty foods can thus be a major contributor to CHD. That’s common sense right? What we put in our body is directly related to how our body functions. In the diet-crazed world we live in, we all understand to some extent that eating better and losing weight will make us healthier. And don’t get me wrong, it will. But what is often overlooked is the impressive list of health benefits from exercising, other than just losing weight, getting toned and looking good. The list is HUGE, but for now I’m going to focus on the benefits relating to preventing heart disease. The mechanisms through which exercise can help prevent and combat existing early stages of CHD are as follows:
- Increases levels of “good” cholesterol while helping lower levels of “bad” cholesterol
- Decreases the heart’s demand for oxygen while increasing blood flow to the heart tissue
- Decreases blood coagulability reducing incidence of blockages due to blood clots
- Enhances overall cardiovascular function, leading to less stress on the heart
The list is actually much longer but the others are a lot more technical, and for illustration purposes I think this is adequate. I’ve had people actually tell me “I don’t exercise because that’s a great way to have a heart attack”. With all of the research out there, I can’t believe anyone still has that mentality. Take a look on the website of any reputable heart health organization and I can almost guarantee that physical inactivity will be one of the major risk factors in developing CHD and physical activity will be one of the main preventative measures. A 2007 meta-analysis published in the European Journal of Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation looked at results of 33 studies involving 883, 372 participants. They found that physical activity was associated with a 35% reduction of risk for cardiovascular death.
Now I’m certainly not advocating that weight loss is not important to your health and the health of your heart, because it is. What I’m saying is that weight loss alone, through diet or other means, will only do so much in preventing heart disease. If weight loss is your goal, do it though exercise AND diet in order to reap the full benefits for your heart.
Eat well and exercise lots.
