Heart Health : Do You Know Your Other Heart Health Risk Factors?

Do You Eat What's Best for a Healthy Heart?

 

Chocolate is bad for your heart. No, it's good. Wine is unhealthy. No, it's healthy. Pack your plate with protein and cut back on bread to lose weight. No...

 

With all the mixed messages about "good" and "bad" foods in the media, it's not surprising that many people just give up trying to figure out what they should eat. If you're confused, you're not alone.

 

"Our research has shown that the No. 1 thing people are confused about when it comes to heart health is what the best diet is," says preventive cardiologist Lori Mosca, MD, founder of Columbia University Medical Center's Preventive Cardiology Program and author of Heart to Heart: A Personal Plan for Creating a Heart-Healthy Family. "Every week there's a conflicting research study or a new book that refutes last year's book."

 

Forget the competing headlines -- the best way to eat heart healthy is to follow national guidelines from organizations like the American Heart Association. "These are established by experts who monitor research, and are not focused on the latest fads and trends. It's actually much simpler than people realize,".

 

5 Simple Steps to a Heart Healthy Diet

 

Ready to step up to a diet rich in the healthy nutrients your heart craves? The experts recommend staring here:

 

·          Eat a diet rich in vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and fiber.

·          Eat fish at least twice a week.

·          Limit how much saturated fat, trans fat, and cholesterol you eat. Only 30% of your daily calories should come from fat, with very little of that from saturated fats.

·          Select fat-free, 1% fat, and low-fat dairy products.

·          Cut back on foods containing partially hydrogenated vegetable oils to reduce trans fat in your diet.

·          Limit your salt intake.

 

One way to make sure that your diet is rich in fruits, vegetables, and fiber, and low in saturated fats, is to divide your plate at each meal: half vegetables, 1/4 high-quality protein (like legumes -- terrific sources of protein and great for a healthy heart!), and 1/4 for fish or a very lean meat.

And remember, you should get your nutrients from foods themselves, the antioxidants and other heart-healthy goodies found in foods like blueberries, beans, and artichokes don't pack the same punch when they're not in food form.

 

And avoid fad diets. "Almost every one may result in short-term weight loss but leave you weighing even more a year later, and preventing weight gain is one of the best ways to prevent developing heart disease risk factors."

 

 

A heart-healthy lifestyle is about more than just diet and exercise. The single most dangerous thing you can do to your heart is to smoke. Just by itself, cigarette smoking increases your risk of heart disease, but it also worsens other factors that contribute to heart disease:

 

·          It increases blood pressure

·          It increases the tendency of blood to clot

·          It decreases levels of HDL -- the good cholesterol

 

If you smoke a pack a day, you have more than twice the risk of a heart attack than someone who doesn't smoke.

"Every cigarette you cut back matters,". "The goal is always complete cessation, but even eliminating one cigarette a day can make a difference. Start there, and then try to keep going until you've quit altogether."

 

A big plus: It doesn't take long for your body -- and your heart in particular -- to reap the health benefits of quitting. Twenty minutes after your last cigarette, your heart rate and blood pressure drop. Two weeks to three months later, your circulation and lung function improve. Just one year after quitting, your excess risk of coronary heart disease is just half that of a smoker's.

 

You may have other risk factors for heart disease that are not on your radar. Anxiety, anger, depression, and social isolation "silent epidemics" that are very prevalent, commonly missed, and potentially dangerous for your heart.

 

Depression, for example, is very common, and it's very strongly linked to heart disease. "If you or someone you love is depressed or harboring a lot of anger, or seems isolated, encourage them to seek help.  There are many methods to help you deal with these risk factors."