Heart attack: Most important aspect to help reduce your risk according to new study

Heart attack: Experts claim a vegan diet can 'help prevent' them

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Heart attacks are one the leading causes of death worldwide but remain a highly preventable disease. A new study has found one of the most important aspects to bear in mind to significantly help reduce your risk.

Major weight loss appears to reverse most of the cardiovascular risks linked with obesity, according to a recent analysis.

The findings indicate that the risk of high blood pressure and dyslipidemia (unhealthy levels of cholesterol or other fats in the blood) were similar in those who used to have obesity (but were now a healthy weight) and those who had always maintained a healthy weight.

Researchers analysed cardiovascular risk factors in 20,271 non-elderly adults, aged 20 to 69 years, and compared those who used to have obesity but maintained a healthy weight for at least the last year to those who were always a healthy weight and those who currently had obesity.

After adjusting for age, gender, smoking and ethnicity, researchers found that the risk of high blood pressure and dyslipidemia were similar in those who used to have obesity and those who had always maintained a healthy weight.

The study concluded that major weight loss may reverse heart disease risks associated with obesity.

“The key take away of this study is that weight loss is hard, but important, for cardiovascular health,” said lead author Professor Maia Smith from St George’s University in Grenada.

“First of all, it’s no surprise that losing weight and keeping it off is hard.

Almost everyone in our original sample who had ever had obesity, stayed that way.

“But don’t despair: if you do manage to lose weight, it can not only prevent but reverse significant health problems.

“The best time to get healthy is 20 years ago; the second best time is now.”

Another recent study funded by the National Institutes of Health and published in The New England Journal of Medicine found that as long as a person cuts calories, the type of diet you use doesn’t matter as much as experts once thought it did.

Additionally, a person may not need to worry much about a specific balance of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats — reducing calorie intake alone can help you reap heart health benefits.

Weight loss can do wonders for a person’s cardiovascular health and can also help to avoid conditions most commonly associated with being overweight, which tend to increase your risk for heart disease.

Main health benefits for losing weight include:

Blood vessels

Blood vessels supply the heart with the blood it needs to keep pumping.

When a person loses weight, the amount of fat available which forms plaque and clogs up the arteries is reduced.

Less build up means a less likelihood of a heart attack.

Blood fats. 

Blood fats, or blood lipids, in a person’s bloodstream changes when weight loss occurs.

Weight loss lowers both LDL (bad) cholesterol and increases HDL (good) cholesterol.

Thus, more good cholesterol and less bad cholesterol means a reduction in heart attack risk.

Blood clots

Occasionally blood slows down and can form clots.

Those with a healthy weight and lowered blood pressure have a reduced risk of blood clots, which could otherwise break away and travel to the heart, lungs or brain.

This in turn means less of a change of a clot forming which is known to break away and travel to the heart, lungs or brain.

Visceral fat

Fat around the belly and the heart are especially detrimental to heart health.

A 2011 study published in the journal Cardiology found that even normal-weight people with a “beer belly” or “muffin top” and heart disease have an increased risk of death than those with differently distributed weight.

Other studies have shown that hidden fat around the heart may be an even bigger indicator of cardiac disease than the waistline.
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