Cholesterol Archive

Your partner's flawed health behaviors may be harming your heart.

It's been said that the longer couples stay together the more they look alike. As it turns out, the resemblance may be more than skin-deep. A study published online Oct. 26, 2020, by JAMA Network Open found that couples' health behavior and heart disease risk factors also look alike — for better or worse.

"We know, even from personal experience, that couples share similar behaviors that can affect health, but it was surprising to find the high levels of shared unhealthy behaviors within couples," says the study's lead author, Dov Shiffman, a senior scientific fellow at the medical testing company Quest Diagnostics.

Your cholesterol and other factors linked to cardiovascular health may be influenced by the bacteria in your belly.

The roughly 38 trillion bacteria that dwell deep within your intestines perform many important tasks. Collectively known as the gut microbiota, these microbes help digest food, metabolize medications, and protect you from infectious organisms.

In many ways, your gut microbiota — which weighs about half a pound in total — functions somewhat like a distinct organ in your body. Just as you have a unique genome, you also have a unique gut microbiome, consisting of some eight million genes that control your microbiota. Scientists are still learning how the composition and diversity of the gut microbiome influence the health of the cardiovascular system.

If you've been diagnosed with heart disease, the FITT approach can reduce your risk for heart attack and stroke.

About half of all Americans have at least one of the key risk factors for heart disease, such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and excess weight.

You can address those risks with a heart-healthy diet and medications to lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels. But perhaps the biggest boost you can give your heart is regular aerobic exercise.

Labels on the bottles promise better health, but these supplements may wind up hurting you.

Keeping your heart healthy requires a combination of strategies, such as eating a healthy diet, exercising regularly, and managing stress. Adding a dietary supplement may seem like another means of protection.

But be careful. Unlike prescription medications, supplements are often sold without evidence that they work or they're safe. There's no way to know what's really inside pills or potions, since the FDA doesn't evaluate whether the manufacture of supplements is high quality, such as whether the pills are free from impurities. The following supplements may pose heart risks.

Research we're watching

People with low HDL (good) cholesterol and high triglycerides may be more likely to be hospitalized for pneumonia, according to a study in the Aug. 15, 2020, American Journal of Medicine.

The study included more than 13,000 people who were part of a long-term study designed to look at lipids and other factors linked to heart disease. Using hospital discharge records, researchers found that nearly 15% of the participants had been hospitalized with pneumonia during the follow-up, which lasted a median of 21 years.

In the journals

Scientists continue to explore the right balance of carbohydrates and fat in people's diets. But for overweight or obese older adults, a recent study found that a low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet might offer special health benefits. The results were published online Aug. 12, 2020, by Nutrition and Metabolism.

Researchers asked 40 obese adults, ages 60 to 75, to follow an eight-week diet in which 10% of calories came from carbs, 25% from protein, and 65% from fat. Carb sources included leafy greens, non-starchy vegetables, some fruit, and high-fiber grains. Protein intake consisted of eggs, fish, pork, and poultry. Fat-containing foods included olive oil, coconut oil, nut oils, nut butter, cheese, coconut milk, and avocados.

Ask the doctor

Q. My doctor says I'm at risk for a heart attack because a test shows inflammation. I know about high cholesterol and blood pressure, but how does inflammation increase the risk for heart attacks?

A. I can understand why you're puzzled. In medical school I learned that there is a simple road to a heart attack. First, cholesterol starts building up in the wall of a coronary artery carrying blood to the heart muscle. Over many years, the plaque of cholesterol slowly grows bigger. When it grows large enough that the heart can't get the blood it needs to work hard, the heart cries out in pain — chest pain, a condition called angina. Finally, when the plaque grows large enough, it blocks the flow of blood completely, causing a heart attack. It was a beautifully simple explanation.

Over the past decade, nutrition experts have shifted away from recommending a low-fat diet to focusing more on an overall healthy dietary pattern. This eating style, which includes lots of plant-based foods, is naturally low in saturated fats. Found mainly in meat and dairy products, saturated fat can boost levels of harmful LDL cholesterol, a key contributor to heart disease. Cutting back on all types of fat does not necessarily translate into a diet that lowers cardiovascular risk. The plant-centric Mediterranean eating pattern, which is rich in healthy unsaturated fats found in nuts, seeds, and olives, has the best evidence for lowering heart disease risk.

For assessing heart disease risk, a standard cholesterol test doesn't always tell the whole story. Some people with "normal" LDL cholesterol levels might benefit from a test that measures apolipoprotein B (apoB). This test, which measures the number of LDL particles as well as other particles that can contribute to clogged arteries, may be a better indicator of heart disease risk than just an LDL cholesterol value.