Nutrition Vs Exercise As It Relates To Heart Health

[old timer]

The "Best Cardio For Heart Health" thread got me to thinking how much of a role does nutrition play in longevity and how much of a role does exercise play. I think most here pay attention to some extent to both, but how would you rate them?

For me, I think it's probably 60/40 nutrition if not an even greater influence from nutrition. I would imagine that a sedentary person who maintains a healthy weight and eats lots of fish, chicken, unprocessed meats, fruits and vegetables (especially legumes) would live longer than an active person participating in both resistance and aerobic exercise who eats very little of what the sedentary person eats, but instead, opts for mostly processed and sugary foods.

I suppose the other components are genetics and environment, but for this discussion, I'm assuming these are identical in regards to those we compare.

 

[NEMSZ]

I’d agree with you on the fact nutrition probably plays an even bigger role than exercise.. Of course, I don’t think being completely sedentary is good either just because you have a healthy diet... Eating healthy will prevent you from getting cardiovascular diseases for the most part. 30 minutes of cardio a day will do NOTHING to unclog your arteries if you eat pizza and ice cream all day for years on end lol...

But as I said in that thread too, I think Europe for the most part has it right, very little processed foods (a lot of them are even illegal), happiness/family/community/camaraderie, Low stress lifestyle, and moderate activity (lots of people walk/bike and use public transport everywhere) and it’s not uncommon to see people in their 80’s and 90’s walking around town etc... Where as here in the US the average person is on 10 medications for 3 diseases by the time they’re 60 and we have the lowest life span of all the first world countries lol..

 

[TheOtherOne55]

i think its hard to compare the two at extremes.
SEDENTARY and very healthy diet vs ACTIVE eating shit.
Realistically the mix will be the healthiest.
Its tough to think about it in today's context because the active person who is likely to exercise is also likely to eat healthy....versus we all know that sedentary people are NOT likely to be eating a healthy diet.

 

[Bio]

Stephen Hawking is an interesting case. Diagnosed with ALS in 1963. He was in a wheelchair by the late 60's. He died in 2018 at the age of 76. If he was in a wheelchair in 1968, he spent 50 years being immobile. He lived a long time with no physical activity. When he was diagnosed in 1963 at the age of 21 he was only expected to live 2 more years! I don't know what his nutrition was like but I'm sure they figured out a way to get nutrient dense food in him.

 

[Cv215]

In my opinion, the only thing that truely matters is genetics. I eat healthy and excercise because i like to think that it helps. All my grandparents drank and smoked and ate whatever they wanted and they all lived to their 90s.
I just think genetic factors are 90% and diet and excercise are each 5%.

 

[Kaladryn]

I think exercise is the biggest factor by a good margin. As long as you don't have anything major wrong with your genetics. Genetics factor in when trying to dodge things like cancer, heart disease, etc. Diet is huge if you have genetic deficiencies you need to protect yourself from.

This doesn't count smoking and heavy drinking, that is just slow suicide (lucky genetics can protect people here).