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Healthy lifestyle sharply cuts risk of sudden heart attack death in women, study reports
Medpage Today
Women who adhered to a healthy lifestyle had as much as a 90% reduction in the risk of sudden cardiac death (SCD) as compared with those with a high-risk profile, data from the Nurses’ Health Study (NHS) showed.
Compared with women with none of the low-risk attributes, the risk of SCD declined linearly as the number of these attributes increased, ranging from a 46% reduction for a woman who had one to 92% for those who had all four.
About 80% of attributable risk for SCD was associated with the four lifestyle factors included in the analysis: smoking, overweight, inactivity, and poor diet, according to an article in the July 6 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
“In this cohort of female nurses, adherence to an overall healthy lifestyle was associated with a lower risk of SCD and may be an effective strategy for the prevention of SCD,” Stephanie E. Chiuve, ScD, of Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, and co-authors wrote in conclusion.
While most episodes of SCD occur in people who have underlying coronary heart disease (CHD), sudden death is the first manifestation of heart disease in the majority of people, especially women, the authors wrote in their introduction.
