Cardiovascular Health
Heart health, blood pressure, cholesterol, cardiovascular disease prevention and management
6 insights across 1 source
Contemporary leading causes of death in developed populations are chronic, degenerative, and metabolic conditions—principally atherosclerotic diseases (coronary and cerebrovascular), cancer, neurodegenerative dementias (Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Lewy body, vascular, frontotemporal), and metabolic disorders that amplify risk; COPD remains a major cause of death but is driven predominantly by cigarette smoking.
This frames why preventing and modifying chronic metabolic and aging‑related processes is essential to reduce present-day mortality, rather than relying mainly on acute care.
The major successes of modern medicine (medicine 2.0) are in treating acute, life‑threatening, and surgically remediable conditions—examples include infectious diseases, surgical emergencies (e.g., appendicitis), complicated pregnancies, acute renal failure, and decompensated heart failure.
These are areas where standardized clinical interventions, antibiotics, surgery, and acute care have dramatically reduced mortality in the developed world.
Concrete target domains for health‑span interventions are muscular strength, cardiovascular endurance, stamina, balance and coordination, processing speed and working memory, emotional regulation/happiness, and social relationships—improvements in these domains tend to produce 'twofers' (simultaneous gains in function and longevity).
Targets are broad domains rather than prescriptive doses; choose evidence-based interventions for each domain (resistance training for strength, aerobic training for endurance, cognitive training/engagement for processing speed, psychotherapy or social interventions for emotional and relational health).