Heart Health

Tuesday, January 25, 2011


The first and foremost among heart health tips is that better lifestyle habits can help you reduce your risk for heart attack. You are what you eat. Better food habits can help you reduce your risk for heart attack. A healthy eating plan means choosing the right foods to eat and preparing foods in a healthy way.

Follow the Ten easy heart health tips to a healthier heart. You can reduce the chances of a heart attack by 90 percent.

To begin with, walk 30 minutes a day everyday, no matter what. Find a person who's supportive and will not nag and will call you if you haven't called him/her. It is crucial to call someone everyday. That's the real commitment.

The next in the line of heart health tips is to know your blood pressure and do whatever it takes to get it down to 115/75.You can have the blood pressure down to 115/75 with just weight loss, walking and decreasing sugar and saturated fat in your diet.

Include 30 grams of nuts a day in your diet. Nuts raise HDL good cholesterol and decrease inflammation. But they have a heart benefit independent of those too. Nuts have healthy omega-3 fatty acids, healthy protein and some fiber. And this is one of the heart health tips is easy to do. Nuts that are raw, fresh and unsalted have the most benefit.

The fourth of the heart health tips is to learn your HDL (Good Cholesterol) number and do what you can to raise it to 50.For women; some believe a high HDL is more important than a lower LDL (Bad Cholesterol). The easy ways to increase it: exercise; have one drink a day; eat healthy fats such as safflower oil and nuts.

Eat 10 tablespoons of tomato sauce a week. This is one of my favorite heart health tips. Tomato sauce is loaded with blood pressure slashing potassium.

Floss the teeth regularly to avoid periodontal disease. It prevents inflammation in the arteries, which helps us head off heart disease. Many of us are unaware that our oral health affects all our arterial health, and that includes blood flow to the heart and sexual organs, and may be even wrinkles on our skin.

Eat no more than 20 grams of saturated fat a day and as little trans fat as possible to avoid inflammation in the arteries.

Don't be fooled by foods that are low in fat but high in sugar. Read labels and throw out all food that has sugar as an important ingredient. The sugar causes inflammation and if you use more sugar than you need, it gets morphed into omentum fat, that dangerous fat around the belly.

One of the welcome heart health tips is to have a glass of wine or beer. It is a consistent finding that teetotalers have a higher risk of heart disease than people who drink a little, and people who drink a lot have little heart disease but tend to die of cancer. Though there are serious dangers to drinking, any kind of alcohol in moderation is good for arteries.

Finally, eat several servings of colorful fruits and vegetables a day. Include a lot of fiber, and do not increase to that amount all at once. Make sure the produce is fresh and wash it carefully and thoroughly.

Even if the first seven of the tips is followed (Make sure you don't smoke), you will reduce the chance of a heart attack by 90 percent compared to a typical person your age.

Hope you will make the most and benefit from the above said heart health tips to live a long,hearty and healthy life.<<via>>