A new study has found that people earning a low income perform more poorly on tests that measure heart health. This finding could have some big-time consequences that everybody should know about. The study was conducted in Ohio, using information on more than 30,000 residents who took an exercise stress test that provided the doctors with a look at how well their heart was functioning. They had to take the test because they all had symptoms of heart disease.
The researchers took into account smoking and other health problems in order to find a strong link between a person’s socioeconomic status and his/her not performing well on the heart-stress tests.
Unfortunately, this presents a problem that cannot be ignored. The most glaring news went like this: those in the lowest quarter of income were about twice as likely to die in the next 12 years than were people in the highest quarter of income. The finding were published in the respected Journal of the American Medical Association, which further signifies the importance of the study.
There are some potential explanations for this huge gap, not only in money, but also in terms of long-term survival. Lower-income people may live in places where they don’t have the incentive or ability to get to recreational facilities. Plus, crime is more rife in poorer areas of the country, which dissuades people from going for a walk or jog outside. It was always that that people who have less money are less fit — but there’s another important factor at play here, too.
That factor would be diet. The data shows that people with less money are far more likely to have an unhealthy diet. But there has to be something else going on, too, and it seems to be the increased stress of not living in financial comfort. It turns out that people who are physically unfit, but who have greater levels of income, do not have the risk that poorer people have whom are in the same athletic shape. So, in some way, having money shields people who are at risk for poor heart health.
Clearly there is a need for more recreational facilities to be built in poorer neighborhoods in order to benefit public health. The findings also present a new dilemma for doctors as well — along with obesity, cigarette smoking, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and all the other health- related risks on the heart, poor people now share another important risk factor — socioeconomic status. The amount of money you have may have a direct impact on your heart, just as smoking does. And it’s especially worse for people who are both unfit and poor.
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Tags: Cholesterol, exercise, obesity
