Healthy Lifestyle Cuts Risk of Sudden Cardiac Death
July 11, 2011
Leading a healthy lifestyle that includes not smoking, keeping weight down, exercising regularly, and eating a healthy diet can dramatically reduce risk of sudden cardiac death, a study shows.
The study is published in The Journal of the American Medical Association.
Sudden cardiac death is different from a heart attack. It is the abrupt loss of heart function that occurs when problems develop in the heart's electrical impulses. Between 250,000 to 310,000 people experience sudden cardiac death in the U.S. each year.
According to the study, women with a low-risk lifestyle -- defined as not smoking, having a healthy body mass index (BMI) of less than 25, exercising for 30 minutes a day or longer, and keeping a heart-healthy Mediterranean-style diet -- were 92% less likely to experience sudden cardiac death compared with those who did not follow the low-risk lifestyle.
"We know that a healthy lifestyle is very important to prevent many chronic diseases, including heart disease, diabetes, and certain cancers. So we weren't surprised but we were impressed at how strongly associated these lifestyle factors were for preventing sudden cardiac death," says study researcher Stephanie E. Chiuve, ScD, of Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston.
Researchers analyzed data on lifestyle factors of 81,722 women who participated in the Nurses' Health Study from June 1984 to June 2010. Overall, there were 321 cases of sudden cardiac death among women during 26 years of follow-up. Each healthy habit conferred a lower risk of sudden cardiac disease on its own, but risk for sudden cardiac death was lowest among women who followed all four options of the healthy lifestyle.

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Posted by Ken at 12:00 AM