Heart disease remains the leading killer of Americans, although cancer is closing in.

Unlike cancer, the secrets to heart disease prevention are simple.

An article published today in the journal,  Circulation, reports that 50-year-olds who honor the seven secrets of heart disease and stroke prevention (see The Washington Post story below) can live four more decades, 40 years, free of heart disease and stroke.

If it were not so simple, it would be called miraculous. We tend to undervalue the power of simplicity in health matters but this list should get attention.

What will you give for 40 more heart attack and stroke free years?

When I was a child, the heart attack epidemic had begun its march into the lives of males in America in a way that it had not before. It seemed to me that my grandfather, who survived three near-fatal heart attacks and lived on another 14 years despite all odds, was one of the most fortunate ones.

Granted, we lived where the heat in August could blister paint on a car, but so many men suddenly fell to the ground and did not get back up. Right or wrong, it seemed to me summer was a perilous time. Many of those men were not in need of a diet, did not smoke and played a lot of golf. Who knows what was at work on their hearts back then? Second-hand smoke, to be sure. The Delta was then and still is Cholesterol Central. But there simply seemed to be no way to tell which men—and they always were men for women did not keel over dead—would be stricken.

The heart was a mysterious organ then. All that doctors could do was push salt substitute, weight loss, quitting smoking and urge patients to keep their blood pressure down. Also, don’t get “worked up.”  That was what “stress” was called at the time.

Even so, five of the seven “secrets” of prevention were known back then. Cholesterol was not fully understood at that time nor was the importance of blood sugar. Five out of seven is pretty good when you consider how basic cardiology was in the 1950s—and how little doctors could do when prevention did not work.

Today’s sophisticated procedures and medications extend the lives of people whose hearts still become diseased or who are at higher risk for stroke. That is new.

However, when the secrets of the top killer of Americans are revealed, we really should follow the clues.

The Washington Post

“Here are the seven secrets to a long life: Stay away from cigarettes. Keep a slender physique. Get some exercise. Eat a healthy diet and keep your cholesterol, blood pressure and blood sugar in check. ( Emphasis added)

“Research shows that most 50-year-olds who do that can live another 40 years free of stroke and heart disease, two of the most common killers, says Dr. Clyde Yancy, president of the American Heart Association. The heart association published the advice online Wednesday in the journal Circulation.”

Source: Washington Post, January 20, 2010

Citation: Circulation, Online Edition, January 20, 2010