How to maintain a healthy heart
International research shows that watching television, car maintenance, and work that involves sitting increase the risk of heart attacks. Before you throw the TV in the car - even small changes in habits will help you keep your heart healthy
If you want to maintain a healthy heart and significantly reduce the risk of heart attack, you should give up your desk work, TV, and car. This may sound extreme, but new research on an international scale shows that people whose work involves little to moderate physical activity have a lower risk of heart attack than people whose work involves most of their work being sedentary. Maintain heart health
Another conclusion that was discovered from the study is that people who have a car and a TV are 27% more likely to have a heart attack, compared to people who don't own a car and TV.
The study included more than 29,000 people from 52 countries. The researchers note that light to moderate physical activity during work or in leisure time reduces the risk of heart attacks without relation to other risk factors such as high blood pressure or blood lipids. In addition, the study found that this finding held true for women as well as for men, in all socioeconomic groups.
Research progress on how to maintain a healthy heart
A research team from Sweden, Canada, and the United States compared the work and leisure habits of nearly 10,000 people who had their first heart attack versus the work and leisure habits of a healthy control group.
Participants were asked to what extent their work involved physical activity. Participants could choose the following answers:
Work that mainly depends on sittingWork that involves walking on one level
Work that includes climbing a mountain
Work involves lifting heavy objects
hard physical labor
In addition, participants were asked to what extent they incorporated physical activity into their spare time. In this section, participants were able to choose four possible answers:
Sitting Activities - Reading, Watching TVLight physical activity - minimal effort activities such as yoga, walking, fishing
Moderate physical activity - moderate exercise, walking, cycling, and gardening at least four hours each week
Strenuous physical activity - that speeds up the heart rate such as running, swimming, soccer
In addition, participants were asked if they had a radio/stereo, car, motorcycle, television, computer, and animals.
Maintaining a healthy heart: key findings
After arranging the data according to various criteria such as age, gender, country, education, diet, etc., it was found that people who worked in jobs that included light physical activity had a 22% higher risk of a heart attack. People who did jobs that included moderate physical activity had an 11% higher risk of a heart attack. Compared to people whose work consisted mainly of sitting.
However, for people who did work that involved strenuous physical activity, their risk was not reduced at all. It was also found that in leisure time, the risk of heart attack drops to 13% in those who engage in light physical activity compared to 24% in those who engage in moderate or vigorous physical activity.
Additionally, people with a car and a TV had a 27% higher risk of heart attack, compared to people without a car and TV.
The good news: Maintaining a healthy heart is possible and easy
Lifestyle changes can reduce the risk of a heart attack without immediately giving up the TV and the car. The researchers point out that physical activity, even less than 30 minutes a day, five times a week, protects the heart and prevents the occurrence of attacks.
Most people know that physical activity improves their health, so awareness-raising efforts on this issue are almost superfluous. But even though most of us know it, not everyone does. To incorporate physical activity as a normal part of daily activity, will, goal setting and effort are needed.
In response to the results of the research, many cardiologists say that we must be active to be able to maintain a healthy heart. They specifically recommend 30 minutes of physical activity every day, five days a week. Even walking to the grocery store instead of driving to it, or playing a sports game instead of sitting in front of the TV screen can keep your heart healthy and improve your health in the long run.