Tips to Prevent Undue Aging of your Heart Muscle
What Happens to Your Heart as You Age?
The heart is a muscle and just like the rest of the muscles in your body it can lose its strength and contractile ability as you age. The heart is an involuntary muscle, meaning that we have no conscious control of the heart muscle. Therefore, when the heart muscle cannot meet the demands of the body it will automatically do a few things.
First, the heart will enlarge to increase the force or pressure needed to pump the blood throughout your body. Then, the heart will speed up the rate of contractions. If you do nothing about the cause of your heart failure, then the rubber band effect may happen. You know that if you use a rubber band or ponytail holder, it starts out being strong. Overtime, the elasticity begins to wane. After a while, the rubber band is stretched out of shape so bad that the elasticity is practically gone.
The same thing happens with your heart. As your heart enlarges, the muscle fibers stretch and stretch and stretch. Eventually the muscles fibers become loose and stretched out of place so that when it contracts the force of the contraction is not as strong as it once was. This means that the heart cannot pump all of the blood in the chambers of your heart out to your body; therefore, you have extra blood sitting in the chambers of your heart. The heart recognizes that it is having a problem and will attempt to correct the problem by speeding up its rate of contraction. Because it speeded up the rate of contraction, this increased rate does not give enough time for the chambers of the heart to fill with blood. When that happens, the person may develop fluid in their lungs (if the left side of the heart is weak) or fluid in their legs, liver, or abdomen (if the right side of the heart is weak).
As you can see, in heart failure two problems occur: (1) the force of the contraction is not strong enough for the body’s needs and (2) the heart’s rate of contraction has increased. The heart rate of a normal adult is about 60–90 beats per minute. When your heart rate gets over 100 beats per minute you may be diagnosed with tachycardia. The faster the heart beats the less fill time is available for blood to enter the heart chamber which already has blood in it that did not go out when it contracted. Now you have pooling of blood in your heart that can lead to the blood clots in your heart chambers. Another thing that happens is that you may have a low ejection fraction meaning that not enough blood is leaving your heart. The body thinks that you are dehydrated and will attempt to fix the problem by adding fluid to your blood. Your kidneys will release a hormone that causes you to urinate less and retain fluid. Now you have more fluid volume for the heart muscle to try to pump out. This is not a good thing; it just makes more work for the heart.
Risk factors of Heart Failure
One in five 40-year-old American men are at risk of developing heart failure and that risk increases as they age. ¹ Most people develop heart failure as a complication of other diseases such as:
1. Age: People 65 years of age or older.
2. Gender: More men than women but women’s symptoms are more severe.
3. Race: African Americans are at higher risk.
4. Diseases
a. Myocardial infarction (heart attack)
b. Coronary artery disease (blockage in your heart arteries)
c. Hypertension
d. Diabetes mellitus
e. Obesity
f. Chronic lung problems
g. Metabolic diseases such as kidney or liver problems
h. Treatment with cardiotoxic drugs (chemotherapy)
i. Sleep apnea
5. Family history
6. Lifestyle habits
a. Street drug use (cocaine)
b. Alcohol abuse
c. Unhealthy eating
d. Lack of physical exercise
e. Smoking
Many of the causes of heart failure can be avoided by engaging in healthy living practices. These healthy living practices will help to prevent the extra workload on the heart thereby preventing enlargement of the heart. Now, you will not be able to determine that your heart is enlarging or that you are developing signs of heart failure until the disease has progressed. Therefore, you need to see a doctor for a yearly wellness check. The doctor will determine if you are at risk of developing heart failure or have signs of heart failure. From that point the doctor may do a diagnostic workup and prescribe medical treatment.
What can you do to prevent development of heart failure? First develop healthy lifestyle practices and adhere to the treatment plan for home management of medical conditions.
Healthy Living Practices to Prevent Heart Failure
1. Monitor your blood pressure and cholesterol level regularly.
2. Eat a healthy diet that consists of six to eight servings of fruits and vegetables per day and less saturated fats (butter, coconut oil, palm oil, bacon, sausage, cured meats) and trans fats. Trans fats are created by changing liquid oils into solid fats like shortening or margarine. If you would like to learn more about healthy eating, click here.
3. Quit smoking
4. Maintain a healthy weight and Body Mass Index (BMI) less than 25.
5. Manage the stress in your life
6. Exercise three times a week for 30 minutes each time.
7. Get six to eight hours of restful sleep each night.
Please, please, please, do not stop taking medications for your heart, hypertension, or other health problems on your own. If you do not like the way the medication makes you feel, talk to your doctor about it and a different medication may be prescribed.
References
¹ Schwinger R. (2021). Pathophysiology of heart failure. Cardiovascular diagnosis and therapy, 11(1), 263–276. https://doi.org/10.21037/cdt-20-302
