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Heart disease is a leading cause of death in the United States for both men and women. You can do a lot to protect your heart and stay healthy.

Heart-healthy living involves understanding your risk, making healthy choices, and taking steps to reduce your chances of getting heart disease, including coronary heart disease, which is the most common type.

 

By taking preventive measures, you can lower your risk of developing heart disease; by improving your overall health and well-being.  The first step toward good heart health is understanding your risk of heart disease. Your risk depends on many factors, some of which are changeable and others that are not. Risk factors are conditions or habits that make a person more likely to develop a disease. These risk factors may be different for each person.

Preventing heart disease starts with knowing what your risks factors are and what you can do to lower them. Some risk factors for heart disease are:

• high blood pressure

• high blood cholesterol

• overweight or obesity

• prediabetes or diabetes

• Cigarette smoker

• no regular physical activity

• family history of early heart disease

• history of preeclampsia, which is a sudden rise in blood pressure and too much protein in the urine during pregnancy

• unhealthy eating behaviors
   

Each risk factor increases your chance of developing heart disease. The more risks you have, the higher your overall risk.  Being more physically active and eating healthy are important steps to take for good heart health.  Women generally get heart disease about 10 years later than men do, but it’s still women’s #1 killer.  After menopause, women are more likely to get heart disease, because estrogen hormone levels drop. Women who have gone through early menopause, either naturally or because they have had a hysterectomy, are twice as likely to develop heart disease than women of the same age who have not gone through menopause. Middle age is also a time when women tend to develop other risk factors for heart disease, such as high blood pressure.

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A crucial step in determining your risk for heart disease is to see your health care provider to get a thorough examination and risk assessment. Your doctor may use a risk calculator to estimate your risk of having a heart attack, having a stroke, or dying from a heart or blood vessel disease in the next 10 years or throughout your life.  For example, the Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease (ASCVD) Estimator linked here considers your cholesterol levels, age, sex, race, and blood pressure. It also factors in whether you smoke or take medicine to manage your high blood pressure or cholesterol.  Your doctor can be an important partner in helping you set and reach goals for good heart health. Ask about your risk for heart disease at your annual checkup, because your risk can change over time, so keep asking each year.

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Two of the major risk factors for heart disease are high blood pressure and high blood cholesterol. If either of these numbers are high, work with your doctor to discuss ways to get them to a healthy range.  Blood pressure is the force of blood pushing against the walls of your arteries as your heart pumps blood. If this pressure rises and stays high over time, it can damage your heart and your blood vessels and lead to plaque buildup.

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Most adults should have their blood pressure checked at least once a year. If you have high blood pressure, you will likely need to be checked more often. Talk with your doctor about how often you should have your blood pressure checked.

The blood pressure reading is made up of two numbers, with the systolic number above the diastolic number. These numbers are measures of pressure in millimeters of mercury (mm Hg).  Your blood pressure is considered high when you have consistent systolic readings of 140 mm Hg or higher or diastolic readings of 90 mm Hg or higher. Based on research, your provider may also consider you to have high blood pressure if you are an adult or child age 13 or older who has consistent systolic readings of 130 to 139 mm Hg or diastolic readings of 80 to 89 mm Hg and you have other risk factors for heart disease.

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A blood test can show whether your cholesterol levels are healthy. Talk with your doctor about having your cholesterol tested and how often you need it tested. Your cholesterol numbers will include total cholesterol, “bad” LDL cholesterol and “good” HDL cholesterol, and triglyceride. Ask your doctor what these numbers mean for you.

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You need your heart to live, so you have to take heart disease extremely serious.  Starting to monitor your eating habits is a great way to start.  DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) is a flexible and balanced eating plan that helps create a heart-healthy eating style for life.  The DASH eating plan recommends:

• Eating vegetables, fruits, and whole grains

• Including fat-free or low-fat dairy products, fish, poultry, beans, nuts, and vegetable oils

• Limiting foods that are high in saturated fat, such as fatty meats, full-fat dairy products, and tropical oils such as coconut, palm kernel, and palm oils

• Limiting sugar-sweetened beverages and sweets

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Celebrate Heart Health Month by researching heart health and taking better care of your heart.

 Source: American Heart Association

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By Dietra Myers

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