It’s not clear how active the study participants were before the age of 65, so there’s no way to know how healthy habits earlier in life affected them. Researchers also don’t know whether healthier habits — earlier in life, later in life or both — directly reduced heart failure rates because the study was not designed to find a cause-and-effect link.
Dr. David Maron, Director of Preventive Cardiology at Stanford University School of Medicine in Palo Alto, Calif., co-wrote a commentary accompanying the study.
Maron said he believes the study provides “strong and plausible” indications that healthy habits reduce the risk of heart failure, although he acknowledges that it doesn’t prove they do.
“A healthy lifestyle may not only help you reach an old age,” he said, “it may help you avoid heart failure when you get there.”
The study appears in the July 6 issue of the journal JACC: Heart Failure, published by the American College of Cardiology.
Copyright HealthDay News June 2015