“Heart Age” is rarely in line with U.S. adults’ real age.
Your heart started taking shape at roughly the same time the rest of your body did – how come they’re not the same age?
Lifestyle choices you’ve made are the most likely culprit if you are among the 50% of adult American men with a Heart Age exceeding their actual age, or the 2 in 5 American women.
“Basically ‘Heart Age’ is just a simple way to understand the risk for heart attack or stroke,” says Dr. Konstantinos Charitakis, an interventional cardiologist with UTHealth in Houston and the Memorial Hermann Heart and Vascular Institute-TMC. On their website, the CDC describes ‘heart age’ as “the age of your heart and blood vessels as a result of your risk factors for heart attack and stroke.” Dr. Charitakis says risk factors include high blood pressure, smoking, poor diet, smoking, obesity, physical inactivity, and diabetes.
(source: CDC)
The good news is that by reducing your risk factors, at any age, you can improve your “Heart Age.”
“It’s never too late, and I think that’s the most important message. Even after a heart attack, even after a stroke, once well-controlled, they definitely improve the quality of life, they definitely make people live longer,” says Dr. Charitakis.