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These include heart attack (the interruption of the blood
supply to the heart), congestive heart failure (the inability of the heart
to maintain adequate blood circulation), atherosclerosis (plaque in the
arteries), arteriosclerosis (all forms of hardening of the arteries),
stroke (a sudden loss of brain function caused by a blockage or rupture
of a blood vessel to the brain), and high blood pressure.
Who it affects
CVD is the number one health-related killer for both men and women and
among all racial and ethnic groups. Although it is often thought that
CVD affects men and older people, it is a major killer of women and people
in the prime of their life—more than half of all CVD deaths each
year occurs among women. In the United States, about 950,000 people die
of CVD each year—the equivalent of one death every 33 seconds! Almost
25 percent of Americans live with some form of CVD. It is the leading
cause of permanent disability among working adults, and accounts for more
than 40 percent of all deaths. In Canada, CVD is the number one cause
of premature death. CVD claims the lives of 79,000 Canadians and accounts
for 294,000 lost years of potential life. Statistics show that 44 percent
of older Canadian women die of heart disease compared with 41 percent
of men.
In the United States, congestive heart failure is the most frequent cause
of hospitalization for people aged 65 years and older, and stroke accounts
for disability among more than one million people nationwide. African-Americans
have almost double the rate of fatal stroke than Caucasians, and the prevalence
of high blood pressure in African-Americans is among the highest in the
world.
How much it costs
The economic impact of CVD-related health issues is just as grave. As
the population ages, the cost of CVD on the U.S. health-care system continues
to grow. With almost 6 million hospitalizations each year, the estimated
cost of CVD in the United States in 2001 is $298 billion, including health-care
expenditures and lost productivity. CVD costs Canadians more than $7.3
billion in direct costs and $12.4 billion in indirect costs.
What studies show
“The vast majority of cardiovascular disease could
be eliminated if everyone adopted a healthy lifestyle,” says Dr.
Meir Stampfer of Harvard University and Brigham and Women’s Hospital
in Boston in a recently published article in the New England Journal
of Medicine (343 (2000): 16-22). Dr. Stampfer goes on to claim that
the benefits of not ignoring the facts are dramatic, to say the least,
but only possible if Americans take their health more seriously. “I
was surprised the magnitude was so large—over 80 percent reduction
in risk.”
The studies by Dr. Stampfer and so many of his colleagues around the country
all have similar findings. Those with the lowest risk for CVD eat a healthy
diet, exercise at least 30 minutes per day, maintain an average weight,
and consume no alcoholic beverages or drink alcohol in moderation. These
results reaffirm what doctors have long believed: that what you put into
your body and do with your body affects your health.
Lifestyle modifications
Eat a more nutritious diet. Only 18 percent of women
and 20 percent of men report eating 3 to 5 servings each of fruits and
vegetables per day. Many CVD-related problems can be eliminated or managed
by eating a whole foods diet centered on fresh fruits and vegetables and
high-fiber grains. If you eat meat, low-fat meats, poultry, and fish are
preferable. Avoid foods high in cholesterol, fat, and trans-fatty acids,
as well as refined carbohydrates.
Supplement wisely. A good place to start is the AIM Garden Trio®.
AIM BarleyLife™, AIM Just Carrots®, and AIM RediBeets®—offer
a convenient and healthy solution to the lack of whole foods nutrition
in our diets. AIM CellSparc 360® combines coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) with
tocotrienols and fish oil to provide total cardiovascular support. The
CoQ10 provides potent antioxidant capabilities, and the tocotrienols and
fish oil help maintain healthy cholesterol and triglyceride levels. AIM
Bear Paw Garlic®, a unique wild garlic made from the leaf, helps maintain
healthy blood pressure levels. AIM GinkgoSense™ combines ginkgo biloba
with the essential fatty acid DHA, bilberry fruit extract, and the carotenoids
lutein and zeaxanthin to provide overall support for your neuro health.
It also supports cardiovascular health through maintaining healthy circulation.
AIM Proancynol® 2000, a combination of green tea, grape seed extract,
alpha-lipoic acid, and other powerful antioxidants, helps fight free radicals
and maintain a healthy immune system.
Incorporate physical activity. People who are sedentary have twice
the risk for heart disease as those who are active. More than half of
U.S. adults does not achieve recommended levels of physical activity.
You don’t have to join an expensive gym to reap the benefits of exercise.
Here are a few ideas on how to maintain a recommended level of activity:
- Take a short walk before breakfast or after dinner (or both!). Start
with 5 to 10 minutes and work up to 30 minutes. Pick up the pace from
leisurely to brisk. Choose a hilly route.
- Walk or bike to the corner store instead of driving.
- Park farther away at the shopping mall and walk the extra distance.
Wear your walking shoes and sneak in an extra lap or two around the mall.
- Take the stairs whenever possible instead of the elevator.
- While watching television, do stretches, lift hand weights, or ride
a stationary bicycle. Put away your remote control so you have to change
the channel manually.
- Do housework—vacuum, dust, scrub the floor, wash dishes—or
yard work—shovel snow, rake leaves, mow the grass (using a riding
mower doesn’t count!), work in the garden.
- Stand up while talking on the telephone.
These are all activities most of us do everyday, but take for granted.
A few minor modifications are all that is needed to increase the amount
of physical activity in your daily life.
Maintain a healthy weight. People who are overweight have a higher
risk for cardiovascular disease. Overweight is associated with high rates
of CVD deaths, especially sudden death among men and congestive heart
failure among women. The high death rate might occur largely as a consequence
of the influence of overweight on blood pressure, blood lipid levels,
and the onset of diabetes. Almost 60 percent of U.S. adults are overweight
or obese.
Drink healthy beverages. Eliminate or restrict alcoholic and caffeinated
beverages. Drink plenty of water.
At AIM, we believe in these simple lifestyle modifications to help prevent
health conditions such as CVD and to help achieve good health. Reducing
the incidence of CVD depends both on reaching young people before they
adopt unhealthy behaviors and on educating older people about changing
their behavior to reduce their risk. Instilling the knowledge that good
nutrition and physical activity can help reduce the incidence of CVD will
do a great deal to fulfill our mission of improved quality of life.
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