Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Healthy Lifestyles, Reduce Heart Failure Risk

Most of the illness can not be separated from the habits and bad lifestyle. Similarly, heart failure, which in medical terms is called the "Heart Failure or Cardiac Failure", is a medical emergency in which the amount of blood pumped by the heart each minute is unable to meet the needs of the body's normal metabolism.


Recent research indicates, implementing a healthy lifestyle - including not smoking, regular exercise, eat lots of vegetables, and maintaining ideal body weight still can ward off many cases of heart failure.
The findings are based on observations for 14 years to more than 18,000 men and nearly 20,000 women in Finland aged 25-74 years. And it is known that as many as 638 men and 445 women had heart failure. Previously, researchers have also take into account the risk factors of heart failure such as diabetes, hypertension and a history of heart disease.
The study found that men who smoke have a 86 percent greater risk for heart failure than those who never smoked. As for women, there was a big risk by 109 percent.
In men with overweight it, they have a 15 percent increased risk of heart failure. As for women, the risk of heart failure increased by 21 percent. Whereas in men with obesity, the risk rose to 75 percent and 106 percent for obese women.
On the other hand, the risk of heart failure decreased by 21 percent in men who exercise moderately compared with those who only perform light physical activity. In women, moderate exercise is associated with decreased risk of heart failure by 13 percent.
Meanwhile, physical activity at higher levels was associated with decreased risk of heart failure by 33 percent in men and 36 percent in women.
Researchers say eating vegetables 3-6 times per week was also associated with a reduction in heart failure by 26 percent in men and 27 percent in women compared with those who rarely ate vegetables.
"Every step you take to stay healthy, can reduce the risk of heart failure," said the study's lead author, Dr. Gang Hu, director of Chronic Disease Epidemiology Laboratory at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Baton Rouge, the American Heart Association news release.
"Hypothetically, about half of new cases of heart failure occurred in this population and could be prevented if everyone involved is applying at least three healthy lifestyle behaviors," he added
According to Gang Hu, healthy habits have a cumulative effect, meaning that the more often people run it, the greater the reduction in risk for heart failure.

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