GET HEART SMART

NEW STUDIES HAVE SHOWN THAT SEVERAL SMALL LIFESTYLE CHANGES CAN DRASTICALLY IMPROVE YOUR HEART HEALTH

- SOPHIE FREEMAN

Modern life isn’t doing our hearts any favours. We sit too much (over nine hours a day, on average), are regularly overwhelmed by stress (now linked to chronic inflammation – a key risk for heart disease) and fill more than half of our plates with ultra-processed foods (shown to drastically increase stroke risk). It’s little wonder heart disease is now the world’s number one killer, accounting for 13 per cent of all deaths on Earth, according to the World Health Organization.

It gets worse. Research suggests that heart disease risk is now rising with each new generation: a University of Oxford study found that people in their 50s and 60s today are up to 1.5 times more likely than their grandparents to develop heart disease at the same age.

Rising obesity rates, as you’d guess, play a role here. But worrying recent research from Harvard Medical School suggests that even people with a normal body mass index could be at risk due to hidden ‘fatty muscles’. After studying 700 people admitted to hospital with shortness of breath (but whose arteries weren’t clogged), the scientists found that those with more fat lodged in their muscles were more likely to have damage to the tiny blood vessels supplying the heart. Six years later, these people were more likely to be hospitalised for heart disease and had a much higher risk of premature death.

New hidden risks to your heart seem to appear every month. But, reassuringly, so does new evidence for the benefits of keeping your body’s hardest working muscle healthy. One intriguing study by University College London, for example, has found that having a healthy heart at age 50 can lower your overall risk of developing dementia, even if you’re already experiencing cognitive decline.

Recent research has also suggested better heart health can improve your mental resilience, increase your overall life satisfaction and may even slow ageing. According to the