American Heart Month Updates

February is American Heart Month, and combined with ongoing New Year’s resolutions as well as the release of the new Dietary Guidelines for Americans, your clients are likely looking to make some heart-benefiting lifestyle changes.

They are probably also wondering: Will these changes really make a difference? Are lifestyle changes even necessary if you’re on heart medication anyway? Even small changes can reduce the need for medications, lower blood pressure, and bring about other positive heart changes.

To learn more about the lifestyle factos that can bring about powerful heart outcomes, personalized advice from a Registered Dietitian is key.  There are some important recent groundbreaking studies from the American Heart Association that underscore the potency of healthy habits in combating cardiovascular disease. See below for a snapshot of these studies:

1. It’s not enough to just cut saturated fats.

How patients replace calories when cutting saturated fats makes a big difference when it comes to lowering coronary heart disease risk, according to a study published in October in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. It is a significant finding, researchers said, because most people eat more low-quality carbohydrates when cutting saturated fats. According to the study, replacing 5 percent of calories from saturated facts with an equivalent amount of polyunsaturated fats or monounsaturated fats lowered heart disease risk by 25 percent and 15 percent, respectively. Replacing with whole grains lowered risk by 9 percent. Substituting refined starches or sugars didn’t increase or decrease risk.

2. Bigger increases in exercise reduce heart failure.

Guidelines recommend at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise a week, or about 30 minutes most days of the week. But to reduce the risk of heart failure, people should double or quadruple that, according to a study published in October in the AHA’s journal Circulation. In the study, those who exercised two and four times more than the minimum recommended amount lowered their risk of developing heart failure by 19 percent and 35 percent, respectively. Those who met the minimum 150-minutes-a-week number for exercise had a 10 percent reduction in heart failure risk.

3. Encouragement, support of a healthy lifestyle is so important.

An Australian study demonstrated how regular text reminders to make healthy lifestyle changes could improve key risk factors in people with heart disease. The study, published in September in the Journal of the American Medical Association, used a low-cost automated program to send four text messages a week that offered advice and support to make lifestyle changes. After six months, levels of bad LDL cholesterol, systolic blood pressure and body mass index were lower among patients receiving the text messages. Text-message recipients also exercised more and were more likely to have quit smoking.

4. Watch less TV, do more exercise and get more sleep to reduce obesity.

In the first study to examine the health of children from diverse economic backgrounds around the world, researchers have linked certain lifestyle factors to childhood obesity. Among more than 6,000 children from a dozen countries, the major factors for childhood obesity worldwide were found to be lack of exercise, too much television time and not enough sleep. The study, which was funded by the Coca-Cola Company, appeared in the journal Obesity in August.

Sources: American Heart Association; Journal of the American College of Cardiology, October, 2015; Circulation, October 2015; Journal of the American Medical Association, September, 2015; Obesity, August, 2015.