New CDC Report: Most Americans’ hearts are older than their age

– The average adult man has a heart age eight years older than his chronological age. Women’s hearts are usually 5.4 years older than their actual chronological age, while men’s hearts tend to be 8 years older.

How could this be possible if everyone is born with their heart pre-installed?

Your heart’s “age” means its risk of having a heart attack, stroke, or other life-threatening condition. Adults in the Southern US typically have higher heart ages. Of course, if you can be proactive and prevent this degradation of health, that would be best as it reduces your risk for heart problems as well as the risk for other complications such as stroke.

USA adults can learn their heart age and how to improve it at a Framingham Heart Study website, the CDC said. Don’t believe us? A recent study about the people in the United States says exactly that. The study was based on a clinical trial in Europe and it was seen that those who were examined and informed about their heart age were more cautiuous about improving their health. Heart health is an abstract concept for many folks, and this metaphor helps them visualize the situation with much greater clarity. They had the oldest hearts, even though they haven’t had a heart attack or stroke before they were evaluated.

Where are the oldest and youngest hearts? The key factors listed by the CDC in determining heart age are our biological age, systolic blood pressure, blood pressure treatment status, smoking status, diabetes, and body mass index.

Ways people can improve their heart age include quitting smoking, lowering blood pressure through a healthier diet, taking appropriate medication and exercising more.

The study also investigated associated risk factors like region and gender. The former group managed to improve their heart age by 1.5 years while the latter registered an improvement of only 0.3 years.

The study of 69 million adults, between the ages of 30 and 74, is the first to provide estimates of heart age and highlight disparities in heart age nationwide. “However, the majority of fatal and nonfatal heart attacks and strokes are preventable”.

American southerners, including people living in states such as West Virginia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky and Alabama, scored the worst concerning their heart age. High blood pressure above 140 mm Hg increase the heart age by about 20 years in men and 18 years in women.