Healthy lifestyle halves the risk of heart failure post age 65

A new study has revealed that people who follow healthy lifestyle avoid obesity and are half likely to have heart failure than those who have zero or low-risk factors after turning 65.

The American College of Cardiology study analysed 4,500 adults for two decades and observed that adults who walked briskly, were moderately active in their leisure time, drank moderately, didn't smoke and avoided obesity had half the risk of heart failure as compared to adults who did not optimise these modifiable risk factors.

The researches explained that after studying almost 4,490 men and women of age 65 and older who didn't initially have signs of heart failure for up to 21. 5 years they found that adults who walked at a pace 2 miles per hour or faster had a lower risk of developing heart failure later in life.

Liana C. Del Gobbo, Ph.D., from the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Tufts University, said that older adults could make simple changes to reduce their heart failure risk.

Lifestyle factors like participating in leisure activities that burned more than 845 or more calories a week, not smoking, modest alcohol intake and avoiding obesity were associated with reduced rates of heart failure.

The study is published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC): Heart Failure.