How did we lower our cardiovascular age?

I’ve been using an Oura ring to track various biometrics over the past few years. Maureen just recently began using it too.

One of the many things it tracks is Cardiovascular Age.

The following is directly from Oura’s app.

What is cardiovascular age?

Cardiovascular Age estimates how aligned your cardiovascular system is with your actual age.

Young arteries are elastic, expanding and contracting in response to changes in our blood flow that result from activity.

As we age, arteries tend to stiffen and lose some of their elasticity, which can cause stress on internal organs.

Pulse Wave Velocity

Your every heartbeat produces a wave through your arteries. The speed of the wave is called Pulse Wave Velocity (PWW) and is measure in meters by second (m/s).

Pulse waves move faster when arteries stiffen.

How is arterial stiffness measured?

Each heartbeat forms a signal that can be analyzed. By looking at the shape of the signal, the stiffness of larger arteries can be estimated.

What is your Cardiovascular Age?

Your cardiovascular age is estimated by combining your Pulse Wave Velocity and the age-related changes in the shape of your heartbeats’ signal. 

My cardiovascular age is 7 years below my actual age (Maureen’s is 6 years below her age) which is 66. According to Oura, “Achieving the alignment is both rare and wonderful, and reflects the positive effects of lifestyle choices or possibly an advantageous genetic background.” Not sure about the genetic background. Both grandfathers died from heart attacks in their 60’s and my Dad died from Alzheimer’s at 75, but I believe my consistent hard, brief, infrequent training has me in this condition and there are valid reasons for that.

My next post will be about how 12 minutes of exercise a week lowers my cardiovascular age.