What can I myself do to positively influence life expectancy?
In order to have a positive effect on your own life expectancy with a heart bypass, there are several things you should follow. In the foreground is a lifestyle that is as healthy as possible. This includes a balanced and varied diet with lots of vegetables, fruit and little animal fat.
On the other hand, regular physical activity according to one’s own possibilities has a positive influence on one’s own health and life expectancy. Cycling, swimming or hiking are good options. Further one should absolutely do without smoking.
The renouncement of smoking increases the life expectancy thereby more than all available medicamentous measures. Alcohol should also be consumed in moderation (at most one beer or a glass of wine a day). Apart from the measures mentioned so far, a person with a bypass at the heart should ensure that possible concomitant diseases are treated as well as possible.
This includes the regular intake of antihypertensive drugs if blood pressure is too high and the best possible adjustment of sugar levels in diabetes. The lifelong use of an antiplatelet drug (usually aspirin) and a lipid-lowering agent is often prescribed, as studies have shown that these can prevent a (new) heart attack. For this reason, regular check-ups by a doctor and the correct taking of the prescribed medication are particularly important.
The better the concomitant diseases can be contained by drug measures, the more positively life expectancy is influenced. Here it is to be mentioned again that the first mentioned measures of a healthy life-style (good nutrition, regular movement, nicotine renouncement) affect all also positively on possible Begleiterkrankungen and represent these thus the crucial factors of influence on health and life expectancy after a bypass at the heart.
