5 Heart-Healthy Habits That Add 10 Years to Your Life | Cardiologist Explains

Heart disease is the leading cause of death worldwide — but the truth is, most heart attacks are preventable.

In this episode, I break down 5 evidence-based habits that can significantly improve your heart health, reduce your risk of heart attack and stroke, and potentially add years to your life.

These are not trends or opinions — these are science-backed strategies supported by decades of research and recommended by major organizations like the American Heart Association.

What we cover:

• Habit #1: Move With Purpose 
• Habit #2: Prioritize Sleep (the longevity sweet spot)
• Habit #3: Minimize Stress 
• Habit #4: Eat to Lower Inflammation (Mediterranean vs. Keto — what the data actually says)
• Habit #5: Know & Track Your Numbers
• The 2 things you must stop doing immediately

Prefer video? Watch the full conversation here: https://youtu.be/-ya9q63boe0

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About Dr. Abhishek Bhagat, MD:
Triple board-certified in Internal Medicine, Cardiology, and Cardiac Electrophysiology. My work has been published in numerous peer-reviewed medical journals. I create content focused on science-based, practical strategies to improve your health and longevity.

Disclaimer: The information in this episode is for educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Always consult with your healthcare provider before making changes to your diet, exercise routine, or medical treatment.

Transcript

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Heart disease. Heart disease. Broken heart disease. Cardiovascular disease. Cardiovascular disease. Heart disease remains the number one killer for most people, but it's also the most preventable. People will often say that, oh, heart disease runs in my family. But not running also runs in your family. These five habits aren't my opinions, these aren't theories, these are science-based, guideline-backed ways to add years to your lifespan. For upper body, exercises such as rowing, bench press, bicep curls, push-ups, etc. And for lower body, exercises such as squats, lunges, leg press, and so forth. How I would view this is cardio keeps you alive longer, but strength training keeps you functional longer. The truth is that most heart attacks are preventable if you focus on five important habits. Based on the data, the sweet spot for longevity appears to be. For more than 25 years, heart disease has remained the leading cause of death worldwide, claiming more lives than infections, cancers, or accidents. This is despite all the major advances we've seen with technology, medications, and surgeries. The truth is that most heart attacks are preventable if you focus on five important habits. I'm Dr. Avi Shekh Bagat. I'm triple board certified in internal medicine, cardiology, and cardiac electrophysiology. My work has been published in numerous peer-reviewed medical journals. Now, when I say add 10 years to your life, I'm not talking about a magic number. I'm talking about what decades of research has shown that consistently works to add roughly a decade to your life. Today we'll cut through the noise and focus on what truly matters. Five, evidence-based proven habits that can add years to your heart's lifespan and improve your longevity. Habit number one, move with purpose. Moving with purpose means engaging in regular, intentional physical activity that combines aerobic exercise, strength training, as well as daily movement. First, aerobic exercise. Regular aerobic exercise. This is moderate intensity, zone two training to build endurance and cardiovascular strength. Number two, resistance training. This is to improve muscular strength, metabolism, and healthy blood vessels. And number three, daily movements beyond your workouts, such as standing, walking more, and sitting less. The goal is not just to exercise occasionally, but to build purposeful movements into your daily routine because that's truly what improves your heart's longevity. The Harvard Alumni Health study followed 17,000 men who were physically active for decades. They found that the people that were more active regularly and consistently burned calories through exercise had significantly lower rates of heart attacks, diabetes, strokes, and dying prematurely. Now, the Pure study looked at 130,000 people from 17 countries. It showed that any kind of regular physical activity, whether it's for work or recreational, significantly reduced the risk of heart attacks and death, whether someone is from low-income, middle, or high-income countries. Same thing with strength training. One study after another consistently shows that regular strength training reduces the risk of premature death. Various professional societies such as the American Heart Association, the CDC, and the American College of Sports Medicine, they all advocate for regular physical activity. So what do we mean when we say moderate intensity aerobic exercise? We mean activities such as brisk walking, dancing, swimming, light hiking, activities such as these for 150 minutes per week. So that could be something like 30 minutes, five days a week. You're aiming to hit 50 to 70% off your age-predicted maximal heart rate. So that's 220 minus your age. The other option is vigorous intensity aerobic exercises. Exercises such as playing basketball, playing soccer, running, climbing stairs, activities such as these for 75 minutes per week. So something like 25 minutes, three times a week. And you can mix up moderate and vigorous intensity aerobic exercises. Now, the second component of movement is resistance training, strength training at least two days a week. This is in addition to the aerobic exercises we just discussed. This includes muscle strengthening exercises which involve the major muscle groups. So at minimum, one day for upper body, one day for lower body, for upper body, exercises such as rowing, bench press, bicep curls, push-ups, etc. And for lower body, exercises such as squats, lunges, leg press, and so forth. How I would view this is cardio keeps you alive longer, but strength training keeps you functional longer. Now, the third pillar of movement is simply this move more and sit less. Reduce your overall sedentary time. And this is often overlooked. So studies show that even if you're exercising 150 minutes per week, but you're sitting for the rest of the day. So sitting at a desk job, sitting while driving to work, sitting at home watching television, that still increases your cardiovascular mortality. This 2012 study of more than 240,000 adults found that people that sat for long periods, especially those watching TV over seven hours per day, had double the risk of heart-related deaths, even if they exercised. This 2017 study used motion trackers and found that people that sat for long, uninterrupted stretches more than 10 minutes at a time had double the risk of early death compared to those who stood up and moved around more often. So how do you fix this? Stand up, stretch, walk around intermittently. Use the stairs instead of taking the elevator. A lot of patients ask me, is sitting for a prolonged period of time bad for my health and should I get a standing desk? The short answer is yes. Standing is better than sitting, but it's not the same as moving. A standing desk is a good alternative to sitting for eight hours per day, but it's still not the same as moving. Movement is more heart protective. If you want to take your standing desk to the next level, add a treadmill. That slow walk as you work will burn hundreds more calories, helps blood sugars, and keeps the mind more alert. This study from 2013 followed office workers for a year and found that switching their regular desks to treadmill desks help them walk more, sit less, and lose about seven pounds on average. All of this without hurting their work performance. Habit number two, prioritize sleep. Evidence is clear, sleeping at least seven hours a night is essential to your health. So many major studies and societal guidelines emphasize this very point. Sleeping too less or too much increases your risk for heart attacks, strokes, and premature death. This paper from 1983 was one of the earliest studies linking sleep and longevity. They found that adults that sleep less than six hours or more than nine hours had increased risk of death by almost 70%, even after accounting for other health factors. This 2019 study that looked at people with heart disease found that people who slept less than six and a half hours or more than seven and a half hours a night had significantly higher risk of death, even after accounting for other factors. So, based on the data, the sweet spot for longevity appears to be between seven to seven and a half hours of sleep per night. Habit number three, minimize your stress. When we think of heart disease, we often think of blood pressure, cholesterol, and diets. But there's another significant risk factor that doesn't show up on your blood tests, and that's psychosocial stress. The kind of stress that comes from work-related issues, family conflict, financial issues, feeling lonely. This raises stress hormones such as cortisol, epinephrine, and this also raises your blood pressure. These raise inflammatory cytokines, which over time negatively affect your heart rhythm, they negatively affect your metabolism, and they cause damage to your arteries. Stress is now recognized as a modifiable risk factor for heart disease such as diabetes or high blood pressure. This 2013 review of dozens of studies found that chronic stress, social isolation, and workplace strain increase the risk of heart disease by 30 to 50%. They found that emotional stress, like anger or grief, can directly trigger heart attacks within hours. The Interheart study, which included people from 52 countries, found that chronic stress from work, finances, major life events roughly doubles your risk of a heart attack, regardless of where you live or your background. So, what can we do about stress? This 2021 American Heart Association statement reviews psychosocial interventions and recommends evidence-based approaches like meditation, cognitive behavioral therapy, and positive psychology to reduce stress, emotional well-being, and support heart health. In this 2012 landmark study, the participants that meditated for 20 minutes twice a day had a 48% reduction in heart attacks and strokes. The good news is that you can train your nervous system to recover faster. So start with five minutes a day, five minutes off deep breathing, mindfulness, prayer, or meditation. Then increase the duration to 15 to 20 minutes, ideally in the morning and evening. This has been proven to lower anxiety, blood pressure, heart rate variability, stroke risk, and heart attack risk. Think of this as medicine for the nerves, medicine for the nervous system. Habit number four, eat to lower inflammation. When most people think of diet, they think of calories and weight loss. But beyond that, what you eat or don't eat affects inflammation within the body. Chronic, low-grade inflammation drives atherosclerosis or plaque buildup within your arteries. Inflammation and plaque rupture disrupting blood supply within the heart arteries is the definition of a heart attack. The exact same mechanism within the brain arteries is the definition of a stroke. The good news is that a lot of this is under your control, depending on what you eat or what you don't eat. And there's robust data behind this. One pivotal study was the Predimate study from Spain. They showed that a Mediterranean diet resulted in lower rates of heart attacks, lower rates of strokes, and death compared to a control group of low-fat diet. The participants had risk factors for heart disease. Majority of these people had history of high blood pressure or history of high cholesterol. The Mediterranean diet was rich in vegetables, fruits, olive oil, nuts, fish, legumes. Junk food like soda drinks or red meats or commercially baked goods were discouraged. A similar study, Cordioprev, was published in 2022. They compared patients with heart disease to a low-fat group versus a Mediterranean diet. These patients were already on cholesterol medications such as statins, they were already on aspirin, and had good blood pressure control. Patients in the Mediterranean diet had significantly low rates of heart attacks, strokes, and cardiovascular deaths. And this is what the major societal guidelines, such as the American Heart Association or the European Society of Cardiology, recommend as well. DASH diet, dietary approaches to stop hypertension. Now the DASH diet is very similar to the Mediterranean diet. The key differences are that the DASH emphasizes low fat and low sodium intake, and it's more targeted towards lowering blood pressure. Whereas the Mediterranean diet revolves around healthy fats such as olive oil, nuts, and avocados. I recommend the DASH diet to patients struggling with high blood pressure, whereas I recommend the Mediterranean or a whole food plant-based diet for long-term brain or heart benefits, as well as for anti-inflammatory benefits. People often ask me about keto diet. Now, a keto diet can definitely help you lose weight in the short term, but not anything more substantial than a whole food plant-based diet in the long run. Now, this small study from 2021 compared keto versus plant-based diet. And what they found is that the plant-based diet group actually had about 600 less calories consumed than the keto group. Both groups were allowed to eat as much as they wanted. The issue with the keto diets on the long run is that the studies looking at keto diets over a longer time span is more concerning. Ketogenic diets have been linked to higher rates of all-cause mortality. Interestingly, this increase in mortality from keto diets seems primarily linked to consumption of animal meats and not from plant-based protein. The American Heart Association has scored and provided recommendations on various diets. Tier 1 diets, which the AHA favors, are your Mediterranean, pescatarian, vegetarian, vegan, and DASH diets. Very low carb diets such as keto or the Atkins diets are tier 4. They are considered the least heart healthy. Habit number five, know and track your numbers. I tell my patients to keep a log, keep a spreadsheet, keep a folder, whatever to track their health results. Track your blood pressures, weight, cholesterol, labs, and even imaging results. You cannot improve what you cannot measure and keep track of. So if your LDL, the bad cholesterol, is 190, which is very high, track it. And when you implement medications such as statins or dietary changes, you're able to track the progress. Same with your blood pressure. Track it and keep it less than 130 over 80. Keep a blood pressure cuff at home, especially if you've been diagnosed with high blood pressure. Lastly, I didn't include these in my top five because this should be obvious. Don't smoke and don't drink alcohol. If you want to drink a beer or two on the weekends, I wouldn't recommend more than that. No amount of exercise, no supplement is going to undo the damage that smoking will do to your arteries. In conclusion, these five habits aren't my opinions, these aren't theories, these are science-based, guideline-backed ways to add years to your lifespan. Heart disease remains the number one killer for most people, but it's also the most preventable. People will often say that, oh, heart disease runs in my family, but not running also runs in your family. Move with purpose, sleep well, incorporate as much of a Mediterranean or a whole food plant based diet as you can. Manage your stress and track your numbers. Remember, small, consistent changes make a lifetime of difference. I'm Dr. Abhishek Bhagat. If you found this insightful, please share it with your friends, subscribe, and follow for more science based discussions.