Fewer Americans have been dying from heart disease in recent decades. But the rate among women from 35 to 44 has not dropped. There’s no secret sauce for good health, of course, but now researchers have identified six commonsense lifestyle choices that they believe could slash heart attacks within this female age group.

They base their conclusions on the analysis of medical records of nearly 70,000 mostly Caucasian female nurses tracked for two decades. They were all in a large, long-term epidemiological effort called the Nurses Health Study II. The findings are in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. [Andrea K. Chomistek et al, Healthy Lifestyle in the Primordial Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease Among Young Women]

The six anti-heart attack behaviors are: not smoking; exercising for at least 2.5 hours each week: watching TV for fewer than 7 hours a week; consuming a diet rich in veggies, legumes and whole grains but low in red meat, refined grains and sugar; consuming no more than one alcoholic drink daily; and having a Body Mass Index in the normal range.

The data showed that non-smoking women who exercised regularly and maintained a healthful diet lowered their heart disease risk by 92 percent compared with women who did not have those habits. They also had a 66 percent lower risk for heart disease factors such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol or type 2 diabetes. Take those numbers to heart.

—Dina Fine Maron 

[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]