How to Maintain a good Heart Health

June 18, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Healthy heart is very important for the well-being of a person. Heart diseases are very serious illnesses and it could even lead to death. There are certain things one can do to prevent heart disease and lead a healthy life. Here are few tips to have a good heart health.

Heart diagram with labels in English. Blue com...

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Heart diseases are mostly caused by smoking tobacco because chemicals in tobacco damages blood vessels as well as heart and thus it narrow down the arteries. When it comes to heart, smoking should be completely stopped and it includes low nicotine, smokeless, and low-tar cigarettes. Also, it has been found that the risk of heart disease due to smoking is dramatically decreased within a year after quitting smoking.

Exercise is an important tool to keep heart disease under control as well as to maintain healthy body. Simple exercise should be done at least 30 minutes a day regularly. This not only control heart diseases, but also control body weight and other health problems. Exercise here does not mean only heavy workouts, even simple walking, gardening, housekeeping, and walking the dogs also counts.

Controlled diet should be followed and eating plan should be heart-friendly. The diet should include vegetables, low-fat dairy products, vegetables, and whole grains. Also, a person should limit certain products such as packaged snacks, fried food items, and red meat. Maintaining the correct weight is very important because weight gain increases the chances of high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and diabetes. Other than this, one should do regular health check-ups to know about their current health condition.

 

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Living With Heart Disease

December 17, 2010 by Leave a Comment
Heart diagram with labels in English. Blue com...
Image via Wikipedia

Heart disease is a term that denotes an extremely large field of medicine. If you have high blood pressure, you have heart disease. If you have had atrial fibrillation treated by a cardiologist, you have heart disease. If you have to take medication daily to control any heart condition, you have heart disease. While many people think of heart disease as something fatal, and in some cases it can be, most heart conditions are treatable and easy to maintain if the right steps are taken.

Keeping up with health check ups with your family physician or cardiologist is essential to maintaining your health and keeping your heart disease under control. Taking any medication that is prescribed to you is essential in managing your heart disease. These medications are carefully formulated and specific to your type of heart disease. Taking them as directed will keep your heart from causing any problems in your life. Hence, not taking them as directed can have serious, even fatal, side effects. Over time if you do not take your medication as directed, your heart disease can progress, it can easily become more serious and can cause irreversible damage to your heart muscle.

Eating a healthy diet and getting as much exercise as you can are also essential steps to keeping your heart healthy. Cutting out some of the fats in your diet and substituting unhealthy snacks with fruit or low fat snacks is one way you can take charge of your care. Taking a nice walk a few times a week goes a long way in helping to keep the heart muscle strong. Obviously, if you are smoking, you should make every effort to stop. Smoking can cause serious risks to a patient with heart disease.

By just managing your lifestyle a little differently and making some minimal changes, you can keep your heart healthy for a very long time to come.

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Choosing The Right Doctor

December 15, 2010 by Leave a Comment

You have been diagnosed with heart disease. Those two words alone can mean something as minor as a heart beat flutter to full blown blocked arteries and need for surgery. How do you find out what the next step is? Who is the right professional for your needs?

If a baby is born with a heart problem, the professionals will probably be called in right at the time of birth, and these specialists and their colleagues will determine exactly what needs to be done and who is the best specialist for that. Heart disease will need to be followed throughout the child’s life, thus setting up lifelong heart care. If you have never had heart disease, and begin to have symptoms, you would probably start with your family doctor. Yearly physicals are so important for catching heart disease at its earliest and making the treatment of heart disease work the best for you. You may just be starting to have some high blood pressure. Your physician will tell you to exercise more, eat healthier and he may prescribe some blood pressure medication, which you may be on for a lifetime. Taken properly and taking care of yourself can keep this particular heart disease in check forever.

If it something more involved, your family doctor will send you to a heart doctor, or cardiologist. Your cardiologist may handle your issues with just medication if that is all that is necessary or you may need another step. Further testing may be involved, or even surgery. The cardiologist will then send you to a cardiac surgeon, who will do whatever is necessary to diagnose the proper issue with your particular heart. From there you may be sent to another specialist, as the study of the heart and those who have made it their life’s work are vast and varied. Do your research. With the right guidance from your doctors, your heart will be in good hands.

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Anger May Affect Your Health

November 8, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Your ability to control and manage your anger levels as well as your personality type may affect your heart health as well as putting you in danger of a stroke. This is according to a study published in Hypertension: Journal of the American Heart Association.

Researchers from the NIA (National Institute on Aging, discovered that angry people and those that are aggressive have thicker carotid arteries. This is a major risk factor for strokes and heart disease.

Additionally, people who are considered to be more disagreeable and cause more antagonism also had an increased risk of about 40 percent of thickening arterial walls.

The findings of this new study show that medical professionals should also include an evaluation of personality traits when screening for cardiovascular disease. The American Heart Association states that there are about 80,000 stroke victims and 1.2 million heart attacks each year. In addition, heart disease cause about a third of all deaths.

Hostility was presented as the main predictor of coronary disease and this upholds the study’s finding that there exists a connection between aggression and the health of the heart.

One of the study’s authors Angelina Sutin, PhD said that those people who are competitive and willing to do battle for their interests have thicker arterial walls. Those folks who are more tagged as agreeable are trusting and forthcoming and show concern for those around them. Those on the other end of the scale tend to be cynical, manipulative, arrogant, self centered and express anger very quickly.

The study also showed young people who had high levels of antagonism had thickening artery walls. This was what was normally expected based on traditional and general risk factors.

Woman had less arterial thicken that the men that were studied; however those women who rated high on the aggression/antagonism scale were close to the men in their number.

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Your Heart Health By The Numbers

October 26, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Do you know the numbers that hold the keys to your heart’s health? You probably have other important numbers such as your phone number or your ATM access PIN or other such numbers memorized. But there are some numbers that you need to be aware of that can potentially become lifesavers.

And believe it or not these are incredibly easy numbers to find — these numbers are the key to heart health and include your waist size, your cholesterol level and your blood pressure. Knowing these numbers can give you an indication of your potential risk of developing cardiovascular disease. And the healthier your numbers the healthier your heart.

You can achieve good heart health numbers by following a healthy lifestyle including eating a healthy diet, following a regular exercise routine and don’t smoke. Even if your numbers are not that good, by following this healthy lifestyle you can change those numbers. And medical professionals agree that even a small improvement in those numbers can reduce your risks.

For instance, raising your good cholesterol or HDL number by even one percent will lower your risk of heart disease by two percent.

It’s important to also examine your goal numbers and keep those in mind; you don’t want to just look at your present numbers. For instance if you measure your blood pressure and it is still below the point of high blood pressure, that’s a positive. But you have to understand that if it has been progressively increasing that is not so positive.

And conversely if you previously had a high level of cholesterol and you have worked to lower that number, give yourself a high five — and of course keep maintaining that lifestyle that lowered that high cholesterol!

Work with your physician in determining your present numbers and the best program to achieve better numbers to maintain your heart health.

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Drugs that can Fight Heart Disease

August 17, 2010 by Leave a Comment
Medicine drugs
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Heart disease is one of the most dangerous illnesses there is. As the heart is the core of the body and provides what is probably its most vital function, any damage to the heart can be fatal. Luckily, there are a number of medications you can take if you are suffering with heart disease.

The most common form of medication to take is aspirin. Although these pills are traditionally used to relief headaches and body pains, the tablets help to thin the blood and thus make it easier for the heart to get oxygen and hemoglobin to the necessary areas of the body. Although aspirin have a good track record in preventing heart attacks initially, their success is less documented for those who have already suffered from heart trauma.

Beta blockers are also a powerful drug in the fight against heart disease. These types of medication work by slowing the heart beat and decreasing the force with which it contracts. This in turn allows the heart to work easier and more gently when pumping blood and reduces strain. Beta blockers are also prescribed for a wide range of cardio-related illnesses such as high blood pressure and regular chest pains, and can also help prevent a second heart attack in patients who have already suffered one.

Various inhibitors such as ACE inhibitors are often used to prevent heart disease in patients who exhibit an early sign of it. The drugs work by preventing the production of certain chemicals and enzymes in the body which cause the arteries to narrow. This narrowing of important veins is what causes blood to be cut off from certain areas and leads to heart attacks. These inhibitors may also be used in cases of high blood pressure, as well as directly after someone has suffered a heart attack, in order to help regulate the pumping of blood through the body.

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Women and Metabolic Syndrome

August 11, 2010 by Leave a Comment
Your day-to-day schedule could be putting you at risk. You sit in front of your computer at your desk all day; hours spent behind the wheel shuttling the kids here and there; fast food on the go; and then just collapsing in the evening. If this sounds familiar you are like millions of U.S. women who could develop metabolic syndrome. This syndrome is a group of risk factors that could lead to such things as diabetes and heart disease. The word syndrome refers to a group of risks—not a particular disease.
There are a few elements of metabolic syndrome including:
–a “large” waist. For women this is a waist of 35.2” or more; it is 40” for men
–high blood pressure
–low levels of HDL or good cholesterol
–high levels of triglycerides or blood fats
–resistance to insulin
If you have three or more of these characteristics, it is generally believed that you have metabolic syndrome. While health professions don’t understand the causes of this syndrome, they do know that women with it do have a much high risk of dying from heart disease or stroke—up to three times higher. These women also have a much higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes—nine to 30 times higher.
Unfortunately the combination of a larger waist and the high triglyceride levels puts women at an even high risk—these women have a risk factor five times higher than others to have a heart attack or stroke. Basically overweight woman are automatically at risk. Luckily losing weight and exercise can reduce the risks.
So if you believe you are at risk for metabolic syndrome, visit your physician for a complete physical. Your doctor will be able to correctly diagnose and put you on the correct regime to help you fight this syndrome.

Your day-to-day schedule could be putting you at risk. You sit in front of your computer at your desk all day; hours spent behind the wheel shuttling the kids here and there; fast food on the go; and then just collapsing in the evening. If this sounds familiar you are like millions of U.S. women who could develop metabolic syndrome. This syndrome is a group of risk factors that could lead to such things as diabetes and heart disease. The word syndrome refers to a group of risks—not a particular disease.
There are a few elements of metabolic syndrome including:–a “large” waist. For women this is a waist of 35.2” or more; it is 40” for men–high blood pressure–low levels of HDL or good cholesterol–high levels of triglycerides or blood fats–resistance to insulin
If you have three or more of these characteristics, it is generally believed that you have metabolic syndrome. While health professions don’t understand the causes of this syndrome, they do know that women with it do have a much high risk of dying from heart disease or stroke—up to three times higher. These women also have a much higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes—nine to 30 times higher.
Unfortunately the combination of a larger waist and the high triglyceride levels puts women at an even high risk—these women have a risk factor five times higher than others to have a heart attack or stroke. Basically overweight woman are automatically at risk. Luckily losing weight and exercise can reduce the risks.
So if you believe you are at risk for metabolic syndrome, visit your physician for a complete physical. Your doctor will be able to correctly diagnose and put you on the correct regime to help you fight this syndrome.

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Stress and Your Heart

August 8, 2010 by Leave a Comment
HEART TROUBLE OR HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE
Image by Leo Reynolds via Flickr
Stress can be a bad thing, but it can also be a good thing. Studies find that stress can be a motivator to remain alert, energetic and focused. But too much stress is bad. You can feel overwhelmed and irritable. Stress can also be bad for your health.
Your response to stress is played out in both your body and your mind. Initially your emotions and thought process will set you up for your level of stress. Then your body reacts through blood pressure, heart rate and muscle tension.
Health care professionals tell us that to manage stress, we need to understand the causes of that stress, and also learn ways to manage stress. These steps and skills will improve health, work situations and relationships.
If your stress goes unmanaged it can lead to health problems including:
-irregular heart rhythms
-high cholesterol
-development of atherosclerosis
-weak immune system
-high blood pressure
In addition, people experiencing stress may take up harmful habits such as overeating, smoking and alcohol—all of which increases the risk for stroke and heart disease. And ironically, a recent heart event (heart attack, heart disease diagnosis and so on) can lead to stress. In addition worries such as financial concerns or health issues are stress related.
Gain control by doing a few simple things:
–Figure out what is causing the stress—if you can’t change it, accept it.
–Take time to relax
–Exercise
–Take care of yourself—eat a healthy diet
–Get plenty of sleep
–Avoid negativity
–Be positive
– Get professional help if your stress feels uncontrollable
–Try relaxation exercises
–Prioritize your day
Working with your doctor or other health care professional will help you maintain a healthy level of stress. You can work with these professionals to help you build your schedule and lifestyle to a more healthy level.

Stress can be a bad thing, but it can also be a good thing. Studies find that stress can be a motivator to remain alert, energetic and focused. But too much stress is bad. You can feel overwhelmed and irritable. Stress can also be bad for your health.
Your response to stress is played out in both your body and your mind. Initially your emotions and thought process will set you up for your level of stress. Then your body reacts through blood pressure, heart rate and muscle tension.
Health care professionals tell us that to manage stress, we need to understand the causes of that stress, and also learn ways to manage stress. These steps and skills will improve health, work situations and relationships.
If your stress goes unmanaged it can lead to health problems including:-irregular heart rhythms -high cholesterol-development of atherosclerosis-weak immune system-high blood pressure
In addition, people experiencing stress may take up harmful habits such as overeating, smoking and alcohol—all of which increases the risk for stroke and heart disease. And ironically, a recent heart event (heart attack, heart disease diagnosis and so on) can lead to stress. In addition worries such as financial concerns or health issues are stress related.
Gain control by doing a few simple things:
–Figure out what is causing the stress—if you can’t change it, accept it. –Take time to relax –Exercise–Take care of yourself—eat a healthy diet–Get plenty of sleep–Avoid negativity–Be positive– Get professional help if your stress feels uncontrollable–Try relaxation exercises–Prioritize your day
Working with your doctor or other health care professional will help you maintain a healthy level of stress. You can work with these professionals to help you build your schedule and lifestyle to a more healthy level.

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