Heart-Healthy Lifestyle Changes Also Alter Gene Expression

After a yearlong, intensive diet, exercise, and stress-management program to reduce cardiovascular risk factors, participants who successfully followed the program and lost weight also had positive changes at the molecular level, researchers report.

“What’s really new and important about this study is that throughout a year of lifestyle changes, you do not just make physical changes—like lowering weight and reducing your blood pressure—but you are making a number of molecular changes as well, and those molecular changes are really associated with the [improved] health of your vasculature,” lead author Dr Darrell L Ellsworth (Windber Research Institute, Windber, PA) stated.

However, just as people who don’t stick to a diet and exercise program may start gaining weight again, these molecular-level changes were transient, which emphasizes the importance of making lifelong healthy choices.

“This [study] further reinforces that lifestyle changes are beneficial” and need to be maintained, he said.

The study was published online February 22, 2014 in Circulation: Cardiovascular Genetics.

Source: Global Profiling of Gene and Protein Expression Associated With Coronary Heart Disease Reversal

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