Five simple, familiar health tips may help prevent 62 percent of fatal cardiac disease and heart attacks suffered by men, researchers said.
Men shouldn’t smoke, become overweight under U.S. standards or have more than two alcoholic drinks a day, the study said. They should exercise at least 30 minutes daily, and follow USDA food pyramid guidelines when they eat.
“A healthy lifestyle, defined by these five factors, is associated with lower risk of coronary heart disease, even when men are taking medication to lower their blood pressure or cholesterol,” said lead author Stephanie Chiuve, a research fellow at Harvard School of Public Health’s Department of Nutrition, in a statement.
The study, published in the American Heart Association journal Circulation, is the first to examine the parallel benefits of these tips among men, including those who already face a higher risk of heart disease, the researchers said. Men were 87 percent less likely to develop heart disease if they followed the tips, the study found.
The research examined 42,847 men who were ages 40 to 75 and free of chronic diseases in 1986. During a 16-year follow-up period, 2,183 of the men had heart attacks or developed fatal heart disease.
The findings also show that any effort to take these health tips to heart can help. While only 4 percent of study participants met all five criteria, men who adopted at least two over time cut their risk of heart disease by 27 percent.
“You can still achieve significant benefit by making changes in middle age or later in life,” Chiuve said.
