The heart of good health

“From the top of your head to the tip of your toenail, pretty much everything is going to be better if you optimise your cardiovascular health.”

So says Dr Donald Lloyd-Jones, a professor of cardiology at Boston University who led the development of the original “Life’s Simple 7”, a set of heart health guidelines, and their review.

The guidelines, established in 2010 by the American Heart Association, reduce the chances of developing and dying of heart disease:

• Eating a heart-healthy diet

• Exercising

• Abstaining from smoking

• Maintaining body weight, blood glucose, cholesterol, and blood pressure within healthy limits.

Getting good sleep was added in 2022, when the list became “Life’s Essential 8”.

The importance of the heart to our overall physical and even psychological wellbeing has been confirmed by a new study from Emory University, in the United States.

Another Emory study shows that certain mental health conditions escalate the risk of developing heart disease by 50-100% and adverse outcomes from existing heart conditions by 60-170%.

Published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, the study synthesizes findings from nearly 500 peer-reviewed studies. It confirms that the benefits of heart-healthy behaviours extend far beyond the heart.

They positively affect brain function, vision, hearing, and muscle strength and even reduce the risk of chronic diseases such as cancer and dementia.

“While we recently learned that heart-health and brain health are closely tied, in this review we found that almost every organ system and bodily function from head-to-toe benefits from a heart-healthy lifestyle,” study lead, Liliana Aguayo, said.

The review is the first of its kind to systematically examine how the American Heart Association’s Life’s Simple 7 metrics influence health outcomes across multiple organ systems.

Among the key findings were that those with heart-healthy habits:

• Eere more likely to maintain their brain and lung function, vision, and hearing, and keep their teeth and muscle strength as they age.

• Experienced lower levels of cortisol and stress and lower frequencies of several chronic diseases, including cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, pneumonia, Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, fatty liver disease, type 2 diabetes, depression, and kidney and end-stage renal disease.

• Had a higher self-reported quality of life and a lower risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes, sleep-disordered breathing, metabolic syndrome, erectile dysfunction, functional disability and mobility problems, and all-cause mortality.

• Experienced lower medical expenditures, health care utilisation, and non-cardiovascular disease costs.

The benefits begin at the cellular level by reducing inflammation and most likely affecting other processes of ageing, too.

The vascular system appears to be the key. It’s the network of blood and lymph vessels that carry oxygen, nutrients, and infection-fighting agents throughout the body.

Following the Life’s Simple 7 guidelines helps ensure that arteries, typically strong, elastic and open, don’t become thick, stiff or blocked, as they do with heart disease.

Damage to blood vessels in the brain – caused by smoking, high blood sugar, or plaque buildup, for example – can increase the risk of stroke and some types of dementia.

The health, or otherwise, of the arteries feeding the heart is related to the health of tiny capillaries all over the body healthy. These deliver essential nutrients and oxygen, without which cells can stress or die, which then undermines organ function.

High glucose, cholesterol, and inflammation – all factors relevant to heart health – could cause capillaries in the ear to become clogged. That could lead to nerve damage or death, increasing the risk for hearing loss.

If enough oxygen isn’t getting to the retina in the eye, that can lead to bleeding and vision loss.

Related reading: Emory 1, Emory 2, Brisbane Times, AHA