Swedish Study Finds Healthy Lifestyle Significantly Reduces Heart Attack Risk

A new study could help men avoid heart attacks by simply changing a few daily behaviors. This study followed men in the middle-aged range and older and found that men in this group reduced their risk for heart attack significantly by living a moderate lifestyle focused on healthy choices. Basically, men who drink only moderately, do not smoke cigarettes, eat a proper diet, exercise regularly, and maintain a healthy weight fare better as far as heart conditions go. As a matter of fact the study suggests that these men are 86 percent less likely to have a heart attack than those who do not live that kind of lifestyle. Unfortunately only 1 percent of men satisfy all of those lifestyle markers.

Lead author of the study, Agneta Akesson is an associate professor with the Institute of Environmental Medicine at Karolinska Institute in Solna, Sweden. She said that “there is a lot to gain and money to be saved if people had a healthier lifestyle.” From the looks of things—according to this study—this is apparently glaringly obvious. The study examined nearly 21,000 men in Sweden between the ages of 45 and 79 in 1997. The research team looked at their existing medical records and other surveys. At the time of the data collection these men were all free of cancer, heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, and high cholesterol. They tracked their statistics until the year 2009. Eight percent avoided all of five “healthy behaviors” which resulted in 166 heart attacks. One percent participated in all of the behaviors which resulted in only three heart attacks. Simply participating in any of the healthy behaviors provided health benefits. However, analyzing the results of the study, the research team concluded that adhering to all of the healthy behaviors could reduce the risk for heart attack by at least 79 percent.