A recent major investigation uncovered two novel risk elements that elevate the chances of heart attacks and cardiac ailments. They proved to be quite potent, even surpassing the strength of established cardiovascular risk factors—smoking, hypertension, cholesterol.
The article on this is printed in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings. It is published by the world-renowned private “Mayo Clinic.” This is a vast and respected medical institution, employing nearly 60 thousand personnel, 4500 of whom are physicians and scientists, situated in Minnesota in the relatively small city of Rochester. The journals issued here carry weight in the scientific community. Thus, the study should be regarded accordingly.
A New View on Old Ailments
But let’s return to the main point: the new risk elements whose impact may even exceed traditional ones. The latter encompass advanced age, male sex, burdened heredity, smoking, hypertension, elevated weight and cholesterol, diabetes, physical inactivity, etc. All these increase the hazard of coronary artery atherosclerosis, and consequently, ischemic heart disease (IHD) and all its manifestations, including myocardial infarction. Additionally, they all hasten bodily aging.
To pinpoint the new risk factors and gauge their strength, researchers examined data from over 280 thousand patients treated at the “Mayo Clinic” between 2018 and 2023. Their mean age was 59.8 years.
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The Social Tilt in Medicine
Researchers paid special attention to social elements affecting health and the body’s aging process. These included living under stress, physical engagement, social ties, housing situations, monetary struggles, issues with nutrition, and so forth.
The leading investigator Amir Lerman from the cardiovascular medicine department at the “Mayo Clinic” justifies the focus on these factors: “Our investigation was driven by the observation that conventional risk factors do not always adequately explain the influence on cardiovascular disease development. There are societal elements we fail to detect in our patients—we don’t inquire about them—and by influencing these, one could potentially reverse biological senescence.”
The article’s authors write this: “The effect of social risk factors on heart aging proved more substantial than traditional clinical risk factors (which we discussed above—editor’s note).”
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Money, Food, and Illnesses
Among all social risk factors, the following proved the most influential:
— financial strain, which doubled the risk of heart ailments and their premature aging;
— a lack of food security, which elevated the risk by 74%.
The first risk element is straightforward: it’s the common shortage of funds, poverty, when money is insufficient to cover basic necessities and essential items, where a disparity between earnings and outlays leads to chronic stress and poorer mental and physical well-being.
The second element is the absence of consistent entry to adequate amounts of safe and nutritious sustenance. This is largely connected to the first but possesses independent significance.
We must concede that this research is unusual for the USA. It hints at socialism, and such a thing was impossible there until recently. However, these risk factors are undoubtedly transnational. The heightened focus on them is understandable.
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