Adults who make healthier choices can turn tide on heart disease risk
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* Natalie McGill

Even in adulthood, it is not too late for adults with unhealthy behaviors to make changes that reduce their risks for heart disease, a recent study shows.

Adults who adopted healthier habits later in life, such as getting enough exercise and quitting smoking, were able to slow or reverse precursors to heart disease, such as clogged arteries, according to a study published in July in *Circulation*.

“Many people believe you can’t change lifestyle behaviors and even if you do it’s too late, the damage has already been done,” said study author Bonnie Spring, PhD, professor of preventive medicine and director of the Center for Behavior and Health-Institute for Public Health and Medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.

However, the study showed that is not always true.

The research involved a group of more than 3,500 adults in the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults study. The adults were evaluated between the ages of 18 and 30 and then 20 years later on five healthy lifestyle factors: no current cigarette use, a low-calorie diet rich in fruits and vegetables, low alcohol intake, adequate physical activity and not being overweight or obese. Just 10 percent of adults at the beginning of the study had all five healthy lifestyle factors, Spring said.

Researchers also looked at the link between healthy behaviors and two risk factors for heart disease: calcium buildup in the coronary arteries and swelling of the carotid artery walls, which constricts a person’s blood flow.

By the end of the study, at least 25 percent of participants added at least one healthy lifestyle habit, while 40 percent lost healthy habits. Just over 34 percent of participants remained unchanged.

The odds of participants seeing negative changes in their coronary arteries varied according to their lifestyle changes. For example, only 5 percent of participants who added three to four healthy habits had calcium buildup. Twenty percent of participants who never changed behaviors and 32 percent of people who dropped three to four good habits had calcium buildup, Spring said.

Study authors said most people reach young adulthood with at least one unhealthy behavior, such as cigarette smoking. However, Spring said the study shows it is possible for adults to make healthier changes and that the more healthy choices they make, the more benefits they will have on their heart health.

“The whole reason we wanted to do the study was because many of my medical colleagues said, ‘Nobody acquires new healthier lifestyle behaviors. They only acquire bad habits,’” Spring told *The Nation’s Health*. “My professional background is as a clinical health psychologist. My job is to help people make these healthy lifestyle changes. I see people make these changes all the time. So I simply didn’t believe this gloom and doom.”

For more information, visit [http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/130/1/10.abstract](http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/130/1/10.abstract).

*   Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association