A healthy lifestyle is important for primary prevention in postmenopausal women with normal BMI

Key takeaways:

• Postmenopausal women with a normal BMI can improve the risk of cardiovascular disease by maintaining a healthy lifestyle.
• This includes a healthy diet, low alcohol consumption, no smoking, physical activity and a smaller waistline.

Despite the absence of a history of cardiovascular diseases and a normal BMI, maintaining a healthy lifestyle involving diet, low alcohol consumption, absence of tobacco and physical activity may be important for postmenopausal women to prevent a first event of cardiovascular disease, the researchers reported.

A higher score on a healthy lifestyle index was associated with a lower score over 20 years. risk of cardiovascular events in otherwise healthy postmenopausal women with a normal BMI, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

“Several studies have shown that a relatively high healthy lifestyle index, which reflects a high-quality diet, moderate to high physical activity, low alcohol consumption, a relatively small waist circumference and the absence of cigarette, is associated with a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease. » Rita Peila, Ph.D., from the Department of Epidemiology and Population Health at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and colleagues wrote. “Although previous studies have examined the association of individual behavioral factors, such as a sedentary lifestyle, with Risk of cardiovascular disease in women with normal BMInone have examined whether a combination of these factors, as reflected by a higher Healthy Lifestyle Index, is associated with reduced risk of cardiovascular disease among individuals with normal BMI.

Better understand CV risk in postmenopausal women with a normal BMI — defined as 18.5 kg/m² less than 25 kg/m² – and without previous CVD, Peila and colleagues created a healthy lifestyle index derived from scores for healthy diet, light alcohol consumption, no smoking, moderate physical activity or intense and waistline. The analysis included 40,118 participants in the Women’s Health Initiative, who were then stratified into quintiles of healthy lifestyle indices, with the lowest quintile comprising women with the unhealthiest lifestyles.

The primary outcome was first onset of cardiovascular disease, defined as stroke, coronary heart disease, angina requiring hospitalization, and revascularization.

During a median follow-up of 20.1 years, 3,821 first cases of cardiovascular disease were documented.

Compared to the lowest quintile, women in the highest quintiles of healthy lifestyle scores had a lower risk of first cardiovascular disease and its individual components:

• second quintile (HR = 0.74; 95% CI, 0.67-0.81);
• third quintile (HR = 0.66; 95% CI, 0.6-0.72);
• fourth quintile (HR = 0.57; 95% CI, 0.51-0.63); And
• fifth quintile (HR = 0.48; 95% CI: 0.43-0.54; P. for trend < 0.001).

After performing subgroup analyzes stratified by age, BMI, and general health status, researchers reported that a higher healthy lifestyle index remained significantly associated with a reduced risk of first cardiovascular event among postmenopausal women. having a normal BMI.

“Overweight is on the rise worldwide, accounting for a higher percentage of cases of cardiovascular disease. This is of great importance during menopause, when weight gain and changes in body composition often occur,” the researchers wrote. “The increasing prevalence of high BMI has led to the recommendation of adopting a healthy lifestyle, which includes physical activity and a healthy diet aimed primarily at losing weight and/or maintaining it within a normal range” healthy”. Although achieving and/or maintaining a normal BMI is an important lifestyle goal, our results indicate that modifying lifestyle behaviors may be important in significantly reducing cardiovascular disease risk, even in women with a normal BMI.

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