Heart Health and Aging

Elena’s Story

Elena keeps an eye on her husband Frank to make indisputable he is taking care of his heart. But, she was surprised at a holocene medical appointee when Dr. Reyes asked about her own family ‘s history of heart disease. When Dr. Reyes heard that Elena ‘s mother had died at historic period 58 after a heart assail, she told Elena that she, excessively, should be following a heart-healthy life style. She said older women, a well as older men, can have kernel problems. then now, Elena and Frank are both taking steps toward heart health .

How Does the Heart Work?

Your affection is a potent muscle that pumps blood to your body. A normal, goodly adult affection is about the size of your clench fist. Just like an engine makes a cable car move, the heart keeps your soundbox running. The heart has two sides, each with a top bedroom ( atrium ) and a buttocks chamber ( ventricle ). The proper slope pumps lineage to the lungs to pick up oxygen. The left side receives blood rich with oxygen from the lungs and pumps it through arteries throughout the body. An electrical organization in the heart controls the heart rate ( heartbeat or pulse ) and coordinates the contraction of the heart ‘s acme and bottom chambers.

How Your Heart Changes with Age

People senesce 65 and older are much more probable than younger people to suffer a kernel attack, to have a stroke, or to develop coronary thrombosis heart disease ( normally called heart disease ) and center failure. Heart disease is besides a major cause of disability, limiting the action and eroding the quality of liveliness of millions of older people .
Aging can cause changes in the heart and lineage vessels. For exercise, as you get older, your heart ca n’t beat as fast during physical activity or times of try as it did when you were younger. however, the phone number of heartbeats per moment ( heart rate ) at pillow does not change significantly with convention aging .
Changes that happen with old age may increase a person ‘s risk of center disease. A major cause of heart disease is the buildup of fatso deposits in the walls of arteries over many years. The beneficial news program is there are things you can do to delay, lower, or possibly avoid or reverse your risk .

Glossary

Look up the definitions of unfamiliar heart health terms in the Heart Health Glossary. The most common aging variety is increase stiffness of the big arteries, called arteriosclerosis ( ahr-teer-ee-o-skluh-roh-sis ), or harden of the arteries. This causes high blood pressure, or high blood pressure, which becomes more common as we historic period .
high rake press and other risk factors, including advancing age, increase the hazard of developing atherosclerosis ( ath-uh-roh-skluh-roh-sis ). Because there are respective modifiable risk factors for atherosclerosis, it is not necessarily a convention part of aging. brass builds up inside the walls of your arteries and, over time, hardens and narrows your arteries, which limits the run of oxygen-rich rake to your organs and other parts of your body. Oxygen and rake nutrients are supplied to the heart muscle through the coronary thrombosis arteries. Heart disease develops when plaque builds up in the coronary arteries, reducing lineage flow to your center muscle. Over time, the heart muscle can become attenuate and/or damaged, resulting in kernel bankruptcy. Heart damage can be caused by heart attacks, long-standing high blood pressure and diabetes, and chronic heavy alcohol function .

Check Your Blood Pressure

As you get older, it ‘s crucial for you to have your lineage atmospheric pressure checked regularly, evening if you are healthy. This is because aging changes in your arteries can lead to high blood pressure. You may feel very well but, if not treated, high gear blood press could lead to stroke and problems with your heart, eyes, brain, and kidneys. To manage gamey lineage blackmail, drill, dietary changes, and reducing your salt intake can help, but as aging changes in the arteries much cause high lineage press in older age, medicine is often necessary. It is not uncommon to need more than one medicine to control your blood pressure .
Age can cause other changes to the kernel. For example :

• There are age-related changes in the electrical system that can lead to arrhythmias—a rapid, slowed, or irregular heartbeat—and/or the need for a pacemaker. Valves—the one-way, door-like parts that open and close to control blood flow between the chambers of your heart—may become thicker and stiffer. Stiffer valves can limit the flow of blood out of the heart and become leaky, both of which can cause fluid to build up in the lungs or in the body (legs, feet, and abdomen).
• The chambers of your heart may increase in size. The heart wall thickens, so the amount of blood that a chamber can hold may decrease despite the increased overall heart size. The heart may fill more slowly. Long-standing hypertension is the main cause of increased thickness of the heart wall, which can increase the risk of atrial fibrillation, a common heart rhythm problem in older people.
• With increasing age, people become more sensitive to salt, which may cause an increase in blood pressure and/or ankle or foot swelling (edema).

other factors, such as thyroid disease or chemotherapy, may besides weaken the heart muscle. Things you ca n’t control, like your family history, might increase your risk of heart disease. But, leading a heart-healthy life style might help you avoid or delay good illness .

What Is Heart Disease?

Heart disease is caused by atherosclerosis ( ath-uh-roh-skluh-roh-sis ), which is the buildup of fatso deposits, or plaques, in the walls of the coronary arteries over many years. The coronary thrombosis arteries surround the external of the heart and provision lineage nutrients and oxygen to the kernel brawn. When plaque builds up inside the arteries, there is less space for blood to flow normally and deliver oxygen to the heart. If the flow of lineage to your center is reduced by brass buildup or is blocked if a plaque on the spur of the moment ruptures, it can cause angina pectoris ( chest pain or discomfort ) or a heart attack. When the heart muscle does not get adequate oxygen and blood nutrients, the heart muscle cells will die ( heart attack ) and weaken the heart, diminishing its ability to pump blood to the respite of the body .
Find out more about heart attacks .

Signs of Heart Disease

early heart disease often does n’t have symptoms or the symptoms may be barely noticeable. That ‘s why regular checkup with your doctor are authoritative .
Contact your sophisticate right away if you feel any chest of drawers trouble, pressure, or discomfort. however, chest trouble is a less park sign of heart disease as it progresses, so be aware of other symptoms. Tell your repair if you have :

• Pain, numbness, and/or tingling in the shoulders, arms, neck, jaw, or back
• Shortness of breath when active, at rest, or while lying flat
• Chest pain during physical activity that gets better when you rest
• Lightheadedness
• Dizziness
• Confusion
• Headaches
• Cold sweats
• Nausea/vomiting
• Tiredness or fatigue
• Swelling in the ankles, feet, legs, stomach, and/or neck
• Reduced ability to exercise or be physically active
• Problems doing your normal activities

Problems with cardiac arrhythmia are much more coarse in older adults than younger people. Arrhythmia needs to be treated. See a doctor if you feel a flicker in your chest of drawers or have the feel that your heart is skipping a beat or beating besides unvoiced, particularly if you are weaker than usual, dizzy, tired, or get short of breath when active .
If you have any signs of heart disease, your repair may send you to a cardiologist, a doctor who specializes in the kernel .

Medical Tests for Heart Disease

Your doctor will check your blood pressure and do a fast blood trial to check your cholesterol, a type of fatty substance that can contribute to plaques in your arteries. He or she might besides do a blood test to check the levels of proteins that are markers of ignition in the body and suggest you have an electrocardiogram ( ECG or EKG ). This test looks at electric activeness in your heart. A chest of drawers x-ray will show whether your center is enlarged or your lungs have fluid in them ; both can be signs of heart failure. The doctor of the church might do a blood test for mind natriuretic peptide ( BNP ), a hormone that increases in heart failure. If the cardiologist needs to determine your heart or valve function, he or she may order an echocardiogram, a painless test which uses heavy waves to produce images of your heart in movement .
To learn more about heart disease, visit the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute .

What Can I Do to Prevent Heart Disease?

There are many steps you can take to keep your heart healthy .
Try to be more physically active. talk with your doctor about the type of activities that would be best for you. If possible, aim to get at least 150 minutes of physical activeness each workweek. Every day is good. It does n’t have to be done all at once .
Start by doing activities you enjoy—brisk walking, dancing, bowling, bicycling, or gardening, for model. Avoid outgo hours every day sitting.

If you smoke, quit. Smoking is the leading lawsuit of preventable death. Smoking adds to the price to artery walls. It ‘s never besides recently to get some benefit from quitting smoke. foreswear, even in late animation, can lower your risk of heart disease, stroke, and cancer over meter .
Follow a heart-healthy diet. Choose foods that are low in trans and saturated fats, added sugars, and salt. As we get older, we become more sensible to salt, which can cause swelling in the legs and feet. Eat enough of fruits, vegetables, and foods high in fiber, like those made from hale grains. Get more data on healthy eating from NIA. You besides can find information on the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension ( DASH ) eat plan and the U.S. Department of Agriculture ‘s Food Patterns .
Keep a healthy weight. Balancing the calories you eat and drink with the calories burned by being physically active helps to maintain a goodly slant. Some ways you can maintain a healthy burden include limiting dowry size and being physically active. Learn more about how to maintain a healthy weight unit from NIA .
Keep your diabetes, high blood pressure, and/or high cholesterol under control. Follow your doctor ‘s advice to manage these conditions, and take medications as directed .

Cholesterol

high blood cholesterol levels can lead to plaque buildup in your arteries. Your doctor can check the charge of cholesterol in your rake with a blood test. You must be fasting nightlong or for 8 hours before this blood quiz. This will tell you your overall or sum cholesterol tied arsenic well as LDL ( “ regretful ” cholesterol ), HDL ( “ healthy ” cholesterol ), and triglycerides ( another type of fatten in the rake that puts you at gamble for heart problems ) .
Don’t drink a lot of alcohol. Men should not have more than two drinks a day and women entirely one. One drink in is adequate to :

• One 12-ounce can or bottle of regular beer, ale, or wine cooler
• One 8- or 9-ounce can or bottle of malt liquor
• One 5-ounce glass of red or white wine
• One 1.5-ounce shot glass of distilled spirits like gin, rum, tequila, vodka, or whiskey

Manage stress. Learn how to manage tension, relax, and header with problems to improve physical and emotional health. Consider activities such as a stress management plan, meditation, physical action, and talking things out with friends or family. To learn more about stress management techniques, visit the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health .

Questions to Ask Your Doctor

Ask your doctor questions to learn more about your risk for affection disease and what to do about it. Learn what you can do if you are at increased risk or already have a kernel problem .

1. What is my risk for heart disease?
2. What is my blood pressure?
3. What are my cholesterol numbers? (These include total cholesterol, LDL, HDL, and triglycerides.) Make sure your doctor has checked a fasting blood sample to determine your cholesterol levels.
4. Do I need to lose weight for my health?
5. What is my blood sugar level, and does it mean that I’m at risk for diabetes?
6. What other screening tests do I need to tell me if I’m at risk for heart disease and how to lower my risk?
7. What can you do to help me quit smoking?
8. How much physical activity do I need to help protect my heart?
9. What’s a heart-healthy eating plan for me?
10. How can I tell if I’m having a heart attack? If I think I’m having one, what should I do?

source : National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
To learn more about making heart-healthy life style changes, visit the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute .

The Future of Research on Aging and the Heart

Adults senesce 65 and older are more probable than younger people to suffer from cardiovascular disease, which is problems with the heart, lineage vessels, or both. Aging can cause changes in the heart and blood vessels that may increase a person ‘s risk of developing cardiovascular disease .
To understand how age is linked to cardiovascular disease sol that we can ultimately develop cures for this group of diseases, we need to first understand what is happening in the healthy but aging heart and blood vessels. This reason has advanced dramatically in the past 30 years .
Learn more about The Heart Truth®, a home heart disease awareness campaign for women from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute .
nowadays, more than ever, scientists understand what causes your rake vessels and kernel to senesce and how your aging cardiovascular system leads to cardiovascular disease. In addition, they have pinpointed risk factors that increase the odds a person will develop cardiovascular disease. They are learning a lot more about how physical activity, diet, and early life style factors influence the “ pace of aging ” in the healthy heart and arteries. The senesce of other organ systems, including the muscles, kidneys, and lungs, besides likely contributes to heart disease. Research is ongoing to unravel how these aging systems influence each other, which may reveal new targets for treatments .
In the future, interventions or treatments that slow accelerated age of the heart and arteries in young and middle-aged people who seem to be healthy could prevent or delay the onset of heart disease, stroke, and other cardiovascular disorders in later animation. Some interventions that we already know slow the rate of aging in the heart and arteries include healthy eating, exercise, reducing stress, and quitting smoking. The more we understand the changes that take plaza in cells and molecules during aging, for example, the close we get to the possibility of designing drugs that target those changes. Gene therapies can besides target specific cellular changes and could potentially be a way to intervene in the aging process. While waiting for these raw therapies to be developed, you can however enjoy activities, like practice and a goodly diet, that can benefit your heart .
Read about this subject in spanish. Lea sobre este tema en español .

For More Information About Heart Health

American Heart Association
800-242-8721 ( toll-free )
inquiries @ heart.org
www.heart.org
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
301-592-8573
nhlbiinfo @ nhlbi.nih.gov
www.nhlbi.nih.gov
National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK)
800-860-8747 ( toll-free )
866-569-1162 ( TTY/toll-free )
healthinfo @ niddk.nih.gov
www.niddk.nih.gov

MedlinePlus
National Library of Medicine
www.medlineplus.gov
Smokefree60+  
National Cancer Institute
877-448-7848
( 877-44U-QUIT/toll-free )
cancergovstaff @ mail.nih.gov
www.60plus.smokefree.gov
This capacity is provided by the NIH National Institute on Aging ( NIA ). NIA scientists and early experts review this content to ensure it is accurate and up to date .