The Human Heart and Longevity - How Strong is it and How Long Can it Live?

I was watching a medical talk show on a Greek TV Channel the other day (thank you satellite TV!) when I came across an interesting fact: the human heart has been designed to live up to 200 years!

The heart is a muscle and a very strong one at that. Potentially, it could easily live to be 100 or 120 or even more!

Why is it then that it fails so often, with heart attacks being the number one cause of death in the western world?

It is because the organs it relies upon fail it miserably: mainly, arteries and valves. If ever there was a single reason for eating healthy, that must be the one. Protecting arteries from atherosclerosis seems to be the number one goal to achieve in one's lifetime.

What is atherosclerosis? Coming from the Greek words "athero" (gruel) and sclerosis (hardening), atherosclerosis is exactly that: a process in which deposits of fatty substances, cholesterol, cellular waste products, calcium and other substances build up in the inner lining of an artery, causing it to harden. The hardening can be bad enough to reduce the blood's flow through the artery. It can also lead to the artery becoming fragile and even rupturing. Ouch! Not a very nice image.

Granted, there are some genetic factors involved, especially with people with a family history of premature cardiovascular disease. However, most factors are controllable and are 100% connected with our lifestyle.

Do you want to hear the scariest part? Atherosclerosis is a slow disease that typically starts in childhood. Yes, you read that right: in childhood!

Before you panic and grab your 4-year old and head to the lab for a lipid panel test, remember that there are a several things you can do to protect your children's arteries and, eventually, their hearts:

make sure they are never exposed to tobacco smoke (and if you are a smoker yourself, there's no time like the present to start the effort of quitting)

make sure they are getting enough exercise on a daily basis. A sedentary lifestyle will damage arteries as fast as anything

watch what they eat. You can't expect them to do that for themselves. You have to make sure that they get good and adequate nutrition which probably means that you have to cook from scratch for them as often as possible and offer them healthy snack choices. A few sweet or fatty treats here and there won't kill them, as long as the everyday diet is balanced.

Now, if you do all that for your children, what's to stop you from doing it for yourself? After all, you have to set up a good example. You also owe it to them to live a long, healthy life and stick around long enough so that they can rebel against you, call you conservative and oppressive or hysterical, admire how much better than you they are, and in the end have their own children, make their own mistakes and start to like you again.

Those hearts of ours can live a really long time if we treat them right. They're tough on the exterior but they can be hurt easily. Protect them! Protect your arteries! Reduce your risk of a heart attack! It's in your hands!

Sources:
http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4440
http://www.rjmatthewsmd.com/Definitions/atherosclerosis_of_coronary_arteries.htm