Your Body May Be Signaling Heart Trouble 10 Years In Advance
Aging doesn't happen overnight. Maybe your morning walk has gotten a little slower, or you're taking more breaks between everyday tasks than you used to. It's easy to brush off these changes as part of getting older, but they may tell a bigger story about your health.
In a recent study1, researchers looked at whether shifts in physical function could offer an early glimpse into cardiovascular health, long before a major heart problem develops.
About the study
Researchers wanted to find out whether changes in physical function and frailty appear before cardiovascular events, which include serious heart and blood vessel problems such as heart attacks, strokes, and heart failure.
They analyzed data from older adults in Australia and the U.S. who were at least 70 years old (65 and older for certain racial and ethnic groups in the U.S.).
None had a history of cardiovascular events, dementia, or significant physical disability when the study began.
Over 14 years, researchers tracked three areas of health: frailty, overall physical and mental capacity (including mobility, energy, and cognitive function), and physical health-related quality of life.
They then compared 2,403 people who experienced a cardiovascular event with 9,612 similar participants who didn't.
Physical changes showed up years before heart problems
People who eventually experienced a heart attack, stroke, heart failure, or another cardiovascular event were already showing signs of poorer physical health years beforehand.
Compared with people who didn't experience an event, they had more frailty, lower overall physical and mental capacity, and poorer physical quality of life.
These differences appeared as early as 10 years before a cardiovascular event and became more pronounced over time.
In the final five years, the people who went on to experience an event declined more quickly across all three measures.
The timing varied, too. Signs of decline appeared earliest among people who later developed heart failure or died from coronary heart disease, sometimes more than a decade before the event.
For heart attacks and strokes, the differences generally emerged closer to the event itself.
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Why your physical function may reflect heart health
Your heart supplies oxygen and nutrients to your muscles and organs, so changes in cardiovascular health can affect more than your heart alone. Frailty, mobility, energy, and overall well-being all depend on several systems working together.
When those systems start to struggle, everyday activities may become harder.
This could help explain why researchers saw physical changes years before cardiovascular events.
However, the study doesn't prove that declining physical function causes heart disease or that these changes can predict who will experience a heart attack or stroke.
They may be early clues to broader changes in health rather than direct signs of heart disease.
What to do when everyday activities feel harder
There's a difference between feeling tired after a busy day and noticing that your usual activities have become consistently more demanding.
If you're regularly getting more winded, moving more slowly, or struggling with tasks that once felt manageable, bring those changes up with your health care provider.
Routine heart-health checks, including blood pressure and cholesterol screenings, can also help identify cardiovascular risk factors before a major event occurs.
Paying attention to how you feel and function over time gives your provider another piece of information to consider alongside those standard measures.
The takeaway
Heart health may leave clues in places you wouldn't expect, including your ability to move and manage everyday tasks.
In this study, physical decline showed up years before cardiovascular events, suggesting that how well you function over time may be another important part of the heart-health picture.
