To Your Health
April, 2023 (Vol. 17, Issue 04) |
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Avoiding the Big 4
By Editorial Staff
The Big 4 are so big that most of us spend the entirety of our lives a) worrying about them and b) trying to avoid them. Fortunately, the Big 4 aren't so big that they can't be avoided if you focus on the Big 1: heart health.
Keeping your heart healthy increases your odds of living a healthy life free of these four major health complications. After all, living longer – which more of us are doing these days – doesn't matter much if we're living with chronic, potentially life-threatening diseases (which more of us are also doing these days).
What are the Big 4? Heart disease, type 2 diabetes, cancer and dementia. Research suggests all four of these fearsome health issues are linked to one health variable: heart health. Researchers studied more than 135,000 adults to determine how cardiovascular health was related to life expectancy without any of the Big 4. All study participants were healthy (in the sense that they did not have any of the Big 4) when the study began.
At baseline, when adults in the study were approximately 50 years of ag), the researchers used the American Heart Association's "LE8" (Life's Essential 8) to determine each participant's cardiovascular health and then categorize all participants into three groups based on LE8 score: low, moderate or high. The eight components of the LE8: diet, physical activity, tobacco/nicotine exposure, sleep, BMI, non-high-density lipoprotein (non-HDL) cholesterol, blood glucose and blood pressure.
High cardiovascular health at midlife substantially increased life expectancy free of the Big 4 in both men and women, with men living 4.0 / 6.9 years longer free of disease (based on moderate / high cardiovascular health, respectively) compared with men with low CV health; and women living 6.3 / 9.4 years longer without disease compared to women with low CV health.
