For one so young, Cassandra has an impressive list of letters after her name and she is a Vice Chancellors & Heart Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at the Nutrition & Health Innovation Research Institute, Edith Cowan University.
Last Tuesday she spoke to us about cardiovascular disease which hospitalises us every 28.7 seconds, with one death every 12 minutes. Heart attack is the leading cause of hospitalisation and death in Australia. Women have a 42 per cent higher risk of hospital admission and mortality after their first cardiovascular event.
These are grim statistics and there are many risk factors which increase our likelihood of developing the disease.
We already know of many factors which are age, smoking, diabetes, high cholesterol, hyptertension, obesity, sedentarism, poor diet and stress. And women are even more at risk because of loss of oestrogen after menopause and reproductive disorders.
Thirty per cent of 50 year olds have blood vessel disease in the aorta. Screening may alert us to the risk with a CT scan used for coronary arteries and a bone density machine for the abdominal aorta. A heart health check uses clinical biomarkers but does not consider blood vessel disease which progresses silently leading to heart attacks or strokes.
As if this isn’t enough to worry about, as we age our lower bone density rates can lead to a risk of osteoporosis and fractures.
Good blood vessel health and in particular the abdominal aorta are essential for healthy ageing. We can give ourselves the best chance of staying healthy by consuming greater intakes of fruit, flavonoids and cruciferous vegetables to lower calcification.
And we should complement good diet by limiting sedentary behaviour, being active for 30 minutes a day, preferably with weight bearing and participate in progressive resistance exercise.
Thank you for your illuminating talk, Dr Smith, we should all be doing more to keep ourselves as healthy and on our feet as we can be for the rest of our lives.
