Another Benefit of a Healthy Lifestyle: Lower Risk of SCD

But do the fat really care?

A new study shows that up to 80% of sudden cardiac death (SCD) could be attributable to unhealthy lifestyle practices, at least among women. The research illustrates that those who adhered to four healthy lifestyle practices--not smoking, body-mass index (BMI) < 25 kg/m2,, exercising 30 min/day or longer, and eating a Mediterranean diet--had a 92% lower risk of SCD than women who did not.

The findings are very important, Dr Stephanie E Chiuve (Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA), lead author of the new study, told heartwire . "Most prevention efforts are focused on identifying patients at very high risk of SCD--who account for only 25% to 30% of SCD--and implanting ICDs [implantable cardioverter-defibrillators]. But for most people, sudden cardiac arrest is the first manifestation of coronary disease--the majority of these events occur among people who are apparently healthy and would not be identified as high risk in a clinical setting--and there is a very low rate of survival, only about 7%. We wanted to come up with prevention strategies that can be applied to the general population, rather than focused on high-risk patients."

Although she says it is known that smoking, obesity, not exercising, and poor diet "are risk factors for SCD, nobody's really looked at the combination of these risk factors to see truly the burden that may be explained through unhealthy behaviors.

Nah.