So some liberal magazine–isn’t that always the way-is talking about heart disease. “It is the number one killer of Americans.” According to a new report from the American Heart Association published in the journal Circulation: 941,652 Americans died from cardiovascular disease in 2022. Before Covid the number of deaths by heart attack was somewhat lower–in 2019 the number was 874,000–but that is not mentioned in the article. Deaths from cardiovascular disease (CVD) jumped globally from 12.1 million in 1990 to 20.5 million in 2021.
According to most medical data, the average age of someone who dies from a heart attack is around 65 years old, with men typically experiencing heart attacks slightly younger than women at around 65 years old compared to 72 years old for women respectively.
The Most Common Risk Factors for Heart Disease include:
Age (the older you are, the higher your risk)
Autoimmune diseases or conditions
Diabetes diagnosis (both type 1 and type 2 diabetes raise your risk)
Drinking alcohol
Genetics (heart disease can run in families, even if you’re otherwise healthy)
High blood pressure
High cholesterol
Obesity
Sedentary lifestyle
Smoking, which cardiologists say is the worst habit for heart health
Stress
So then this liberal magazine suggest the ways you can reduce your risk of dying from heart disease. Note that they put the vices at top.
Quitting smoking and vaping
Quitting drinking (or at least cutting back)
Exercising regularly
Eating a healthy diet (cardiologists love the Mediterranean and DASH diets)
Monitoring and managing your blood pressure
Taking necessary medications as directed by your doctor (like statins for cholesterol or blood thinners if prescribed)
Managing your weight (with a doctor’s help and medications if prescribed)
Managing your diabetes with a doctor’s guidance
Getting at least seven hours of sleep each night
Managing stress (we know it’s hard in this timeline, but do your best)
Remember that it is not how long you live but how well you live. Pleasure is important. You should live an active life but you should do what you enjoy. When the doctors told my mom to stop smoking and I went along that was probably one of the worst things I did in my life. My mom enjoyed smoking. It helped reduce her stress. She was a type one, brittle, juvenile diabetic. When she stopped smoking her eating habits became worse. But worse, when she stopped smoking it did not increase her quality of life or her life span. It was stupid advice.
And understand I am old. So I know that when I visited nursing homes for other people, earlier, there were elderly people smoking, who had smoked everyday since they were very young. Some people do have health issues from smoking but not everyone. Not everyone is the same.
As I learned both from caring for my mom and much later my dad who lived to be 90, with exceptions, doctors are idiots. People need to understand that. And doctors will generally tell you whatever our insane government tells them to tell you in their seminars. That became very clear during the covid shit.
Some doctors get through their education because they are smart in every sense of the word. But some doctors get where they are because they have very good memories and know not to question the bullshit they are being taught. Those doctors generally do not have a lick of common sense and will tell you whatever the government wants them to tell you.
But as a rule, don’t trust any doctor. Do not blindly accept whatever they are telling you. Question them. At the end of the day, it is you who is in charge of your heath and the quality of your life. Doctors and the government may like to play God but they aren’t God. Within reason, if you want to smoke, smoke unless you can actually feel it causing you health problems such as coughs or a weakness or getting sick more often than you should. The same with drinking. Just don’t become a drunk.
And for the record I don’t smoke and I don’t drink because that is not something that I would enjoy. That choice is not based on what some doctor, media, or government says. It is my choice.