Past president of the American Heart Association, Donna K. Arnett, Ph.D., M.S.P.H., B.S.N., Dean, College of Public Health, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky.

Offering perspective on AHA Scientific Sessions 2020 Presentation P929 
copyright American Heart Association 2020

"People who are taking multiple drugs for Cardiovascular related conditions often think to themselves, "Why do I have to follow a healthy diet? Why do I need to be physically active? Why do I not need to smoke? Because these medications should be taking care of all of these issues." Well, the interesting part of the study in what's so important for the public to understand, is that even if you're taking many medications, in this case 10 or more, following four different behaviors in terms of lifestyle, this is a associated with the dramatic reduction in all-cause mortality among those on 10 or more medications. So following a healthy diet, which here is defined as a Mediterranean diet, that's a diet rich in vegetables, whole grains, fish and olive oil, following that diet was associated with improvements in all-cause mortality. Even if you're taking 10 medications. So it really drives home the message that we need to be taking care of ourselves even more on medications to treat these conditions."