Research argument paper
Heart disease: how can someone contract it, what are preventative methods to try to fight back against it, what are the most common ways in which people can get a heart disease? Heart disease generally refers to conditions that involve narrowed or blocked blood vessels that can lead to a heart attack, chest pain or stroke. Heart disease is the number one killer in America and continues to take the lives of thousands of people all across the nation. Heart diseases can be caused by several different things, such as environmental factors like poor nourishment habits and living a sedentary lifestyle. Heart disease can also be transferred through genetics. Two large studies from Northwestern Medicine confirm that a healthy lifestyle has the biggest impact on cardiovascular health.
A poor nourishment habit is the leading contributor of heart disease because it causes several other problems including high cholesterol, hypertension, and diabetes. People’s diets now a day consist of high fat and high cholesterol foods that build up in the bloodstream and can clog or completely block arteries. This can result in heart attack or stroke. Seeing as how many Americans live a go go go lifestyle we are always looking for the easy solution to getting something to eat, the easiest option is obviously fast food. Fast foods create a much higher risk of heart disease because of the high level of saturated or trans fats found in much of the food. Those fats can clog the arteries and, over time, contribute to high cholesterol levels. Fast food restaurants apply several tactics to entice people to come into their establishments, mainly focusing on the children of today. They have things like playpens, happy meal toys and host birthday parties, which gives children the urge to keep going back do to all of the activities that they have.
The other leading cause of heart disease is people living a sedentary lifestyle. A sedentary lifestyle is defined as a person getting less than 30 minutes of physical activity a week. Although this does not seem like a hard thing to do approximately 50% of America’s youth aged 12–21 are not regularly physically active. Moreover, physical activity declines dramatically during adolescence. According to the American Heart Association, those who are physically inactive have between 1.5 and 2.4 times the risk for developing coronary heart disease. According to the CDC, nationally in 2000, 78% of the population was at risk for health problems related to lack of exercise, which is regular and sustained physical activity. Unfortunately this is a growing epidemic in the United States and it is getting worse. If actions are not taken it is approximated that 2.5 million Americans will die in the next ten years just from living a sedentary lifestyle. This is called Sedentary Death Syndrome, or “SeDS.” SeDS is gradually on the incline because as our technology becomes more advanced there is a less need to do menial day-to-day tasks because people are coming up with easy solutions for them.
Because environmental factors are things that happen in our lives that we have control over we as a people do not have to be subjugated to the poor lifestyle choices that we are living with now. Simple changes in our diets and exercise drastically decrease the chances of someone getting a heart disease even if they have been doing those things all of their lives. Now there are some environmental factors in our life that we cannot avoid such as pollution in the air or being around cigarette smoke even if you are not the one causing the smoke. Things like this cause altering heart rate or rhythm, contracting of the heart muscle, causing the acceleration of ones arteries to clog up. Change is happening all around us and we the people can choose to ignore it or be a part of it. Granted there are some things that cannot be controlled like genetics (which will be discussed later) but relying on high fat diets and putting in minimal exercise time are things that we obviously choose to do on our own.
Genetics can be directly linked to heart diseases but there are many questions surrounding genetics. When do genetically inherited traits start in the family line? Are you necessarily at risk for a heart disease if someone in your earlier family had a heart disease? A study done by a Grad student from Northwestern University states that: “Cardiovascular health is due primarily to lifestyle factors and healthy behavior, not heredity.” This is just another example that shows that environmental factors do play a key role in potential heart disease prevention. The second Northwestern Medicine study examined three generations of families from the Framingham Heart Study to determine the heritability of cardiovascular health. Heritability includes a combination of genetic factors and the effects of a shared environment such as the types of foods that are served in a family. Only a small percentage of the United States population – 8 percent -- has ideal levels of all the risk factors for cardiovascular health at middle age. The study found that only a small proportion of cardiovascular health is passed from parent to child.
This shows that although genetics do contribute to the ever-growing number of people with heart disease it is not the greatest factor. Genetics do not always transfer from parent to child, sometimes a genetic trait can skip a generation so this means one is not necessarily at risk of contracting a heart disease just because the previous family member had this problem. Genetically inherited traits can be shown through a person’s epigenetics, which is their gene expression or cellular phenotype. By looking at a persons cellular phenotype a doctor can tell very early on what traits have been passed from a parent to their child.
In summary as seen through many examples and noted scientific studies there is an obvious and direct correlation between how people carry out their daily routines and the chances of them contracting heart disease because of their choics. People have the choice in what they do with their lives, such as how they eat and if they choose to exercise. People do not have the choice to genetically inherit their traits, but that doesn’t mean they can’t take the preventative measures to counteract/ lessen their chances of heart disease. The five healthy lifestyle factors are not smoking, low or no alcohol intake, weight control, physical activity and a healthy diet. If people were to follow all five of these healthy lifestyle factors their chances of a heart disease decrease by 60%. The facts are conclusive and change is within in everyone’s control, it is up to us how we want to live and the positive or negative consequences that follow.
A poor nourishment habit is the leading contributor of heart disease because it causes several other problems including high cholesterol, hypertension, and diabetes. People’s diets now a day consist of high fat and high cholesterol foods that build up in the bloodstream and can clog or completely block arteries. This can result in heart attack or stroke. Seeing as how many Americans live a go go go lifestyle we are always looking for the easy solution to getting something to eat, the easiest option is obviously fast food. Fast foods create a much higher risk of heart disease because of the high level of saturated or trans fats found in much of the food. Those fats can clog the arteries and, over time, contribute to high cholesterol levels. Fast food restaurants apply several tactics to entice people to come into their establishments, mainly focusing on the children of today. They have things like playpens, happy meal toys and host birthday parties, which gives children the urge to keep going back do to all of the activities that they have.
The other leading cause of heart disease is people living a sedentary lifestyle. A sedentary lifestyle is defined as a person getting less than 30 minutes of physical activity a week. Although this does not seem like a hard thing to do approximately 50% of America’s youth aged 12–21 are not regularly physically active. Moreover, physical activity declines dramatically during adolescence. According to the American Heart Association, those who are physically inactive have between 1.5 and 2.4 times the risk for developing coronary heart disease. According to the CDC, nationally in 2000, 78% of the population was at risk for health problems related to lack of exercise, which is regular and sustained physical activity. Unfortunately this is a growing epidemic in the United States and it is getting worse. If actions are not taken it is approximated that 2.5 million Americans will die in the next ten years just from living a sedentary lifestyle. This is called Sedentary Death Syndrome, or “SeDS.” SeDS is gradually on the incline because as our technology becomes more advanced there is a less need to do menial day-to-day tasks because people are coming up with easy solutions for them.
Because environmental factors are things that happen in our lives that we have control over we as a people do not have to be subjugated to the poor lifestyle choices that we are living with now. Simple changes in our diets and exercise drastically decrease the chances of someone getting a heart disease even if they have been doing those things all of their lives. Now there are some environmental factors in our life that we cannot avoid such as pollution in the air or being around cigarette smoke even if you are not the one causing the smoke. Things like this cause altering heart rate or rhythm, contracting of the heart muscle, causing the acceleration of ones arteries to clog up. Change is happening all around us and we the people can choose to ignore it or be a part of it. Granted there are some things that cannot be controlled like genetics (which will be discussed later) but relying on high fat diets and putting in minimal exercise time are things that we obviously choose to do on our own.
Genetics can be directly linked to heart diseases but there are many questions surrounding genetics. When do genetically inherited traits start in the family line? Are you necessarily at risk for a heart disease if someone in your earlier family had a heart disease? A study done by a Grad student from Northwestern University states that: “Cardiovascular health is due primarily to lifestyle factors and healthy behavior, not heredity.” This is just another example that shows that environmental factors do play a key role in potential heart disease prevention. The second Northwestern Medicine study examined three generations of families from the Framingham Heart Study to determine the heritability of cardiovascular health. Heritability includes a combination of genetic factors and the effects of a shared environment such as the types of foods that are served in a family. Only a small percentage of the United States population – 8 percent -- has ideal levels of all the risk factors for cardiovascular health at middle age. The study found that only a small proportion of cardiovascular health is passed from parent to child.
This shows that although genetics do contribute to the ever-growing number of people with heart disease it is not the greatest factor. Genetics do not always transfer from parent to child, sometimes a genetic trait can skip a generation so this means one is not necessarily at risk of contracting a heart disease just because the previous family member had this problem. Genetically inherited traits can be shown through a person’s epigenetics, which is their gene expression or cellular phenotype. By looking at a persons cellular phenotype a doctor can tell very early on what traits have been passed from a parent to their child.
In summary as seen through many examples and noted scientific studies there is an obvious and direct correlation between how people carry out their daily routines and the chances of them contracting heart disease because of their choics. People have the choice in what they do with their lives, such as how they eat and if they choose to exercise. People do not have the choice to genetically inherit their traits, but that doesn’t mean they can’t take the preventative measures to counteract/ lessen their chances of heart disease. The five healthy lifestyle factors are not smoking, low or no alcohol intake, weight control, physical activity and a healthy diet. If people were to follow all five of these healthy lifestyle factors their chances of a heart disease decrease by 60%. The facts are conclusive and change is within in everyone’s control, it is up to us how we want to live and the positive or negative consequences that follow.