In spite of it's size, the heart does quite an exhausting job with all that pumping- an average adult heart pumps as much as 1,000 gallons of blood through over 60,000 miles of blood vessels, and beats an average of 100,000 times a day for as much as 70-100 years in life time.
The heart helps bring oxygenated blood into other parts of the body, which gives life to all other organs, Nutrients also travel through our blood, which improve how our organs function.
So you have to keep your heart healthy, so how are you going to do that?
Studies shows that Men who are physically active reduce the risk of dying cause by coronary heart disease by almost 50%. At a minimum try injecting 30 minute of cardiovascular everyday of the week. These cardiovascular exercise that works out your heart and your lungs- brisk walking, running, or jogging, biking aerobics or rowing to name a few.
It starts as early as childhood. A slow complex disease, it often progresses as people age. In some people though the progress is more rapid and happens even in their twenty's Scientists believe that this disease begins with damage to the innermost layer artery, called endothelium.
Researchers show that males and those with family history of premature cardiovascular disease have a greater risk of atherosclerosis.Unfortunately these factors cannot be controlled. However, reducing the controllable risk factors of atherosclerosis prove to be beneficial: these controllable risk factors include:
- High blood cholesterol
- Cigarette smoking /exposure to tobacco smoke
- High blood pressure
- Diabetes mellitus
- Obesity
- Physical inactivity
knowing these factors, you should be able to control it in your own ways like lose weight, eat well-balanced diet. quit smoking, try to expose yourself to outdoor activities or engage into different sports. A healthy body should have a healthy heart, So love your heart and add more years to your life.
Here are some foods for the heart and simple tips to maximize their use. This amazing foods will help us to have an healthy heart:
Fatty fish = The omega 3's they supply have been shown to lower triglyceride levels.
Try to do this = Put cold-water fish on the menu twice a week. Best choices are white tuna, salmon, sardines, and Spanish mackerel.
Legumes = They lower LDL
Try to do this = Eat hummus with raw vegetables as an afternoon snack. Or work 1/2 cup back beans, kidney beans, or soybeans into your menu daily.
Apples = Research suggests that eating apples or drinking apple juice may slow the oxidation of LDL cholesterol and help prevent plaque buildup.
Try to do this = The perfect snack. Just make sure you eat the skin too get plenty of antioxidants and fiber.
Grapefruit = It's loaded with antioxidants and soluble fiber, which help reduce heart disease.
Try to do this = Have half a grapefruit with breakfast three or for days a week.
Oat Bran = The soluble fiber in oat bran binds with acids in your small intestine to block the re absorption of cholesterol.
Try to do this = for breakfast, mix 1/2 cup old fashioned oatmeal with one cup fat-free milk.
Tea = All varieties of antioxidant rich tea can help lower LDL. Oolong tea, the kind typically served in Chinese restaurants, has been found to increase LDL particle size. That's beneficial because larger particles are less likely to enter blood vessels walls and form plaque.
Try to do this = Aim for two cups a day. No need to take up residence at your favorite Chinese place oolong is available in most grocery stores.
Red Wine = Its phytochemicals can raise HDL cholesterol, or its polyphenols, or antioxidants, protect the lining of the coronary arteries from free radical damage.
Try to do this = Drink a glass or two a day but not more. Grapes are also a good source of polyphenols.
Nuts and Seeds = Almonds, Flax seeds, pistachios, pumpkin seeds, and sunflower seeds are particularly high in plant sterols, which can help reduce bad LDL cholesterol. Walnuts can lower triglycerides.
Try to do this = Grab 1 ounce of nuts about a handful for a simple mid morning or sprinkle some almonds or sliced walnuts on top of fat free yogurt dessert.
People in the provinces are said to live longer than people in the city. Socio-economic and cultural factors aside, some theories credit the health advantages of a rural lifestyle, less stressful. Others say it's the food, home cooked vegetables, fish and meat, fresh from the backyard, market, or sea. Bot don't ignore one other aspect, sleep. Rural people normally get a full eight hour of sleep every night. Sleep affects various aspects of our health, including:
- Cognitive performance - Sleep helps organize memories, solidify learning, and improve concentration. Lack of sleep impairs alertness and affects judgment, reaction time, and recall.
- Mood and mental well being - Lack of sleep has been linked to anger, anxiety, sadness, and mental exhaustion.
- Hormones and metabolism - Important hormones are secreted based on person's sleep pattern. These hormones are affects growth, regulate energy and control metabolic and endocrine functions.
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Everybody wants a heart that's always in good shape but others don't even notice if there heart is in bad or good shape. Some are thinking that there heart is in good shape even though its not, some are afraid to check themselves or consult a doctor, so here's a checklist of things, for us to know if our heart is in good shape:
- Are you overweight?
- Are you diabetic?
- Do you have a high bad cholesterol level?
- Do you get tired easily?
- Do you live a sedentary lifestyle?
- Do you smoke?
- Do you have an immediate family member who has had a stroke or heart attack?
- Do you have hypertension?
- Are you over 55?
Exercise regularly - The heart needs regular exercise not sudden burst of activity. Exercise at least once every two to three days. It is not advisable to play sports only on the weekends some experts say, as the sudden physical exertion will stress the heart.
Floss and maintain Oral hygiene - If you have pre-existing abnormal or infected heart valves, it is best to maintain oral hygiene. The unsanitary condition in your mouth and gum's can infect valves and lead to heart disease.
Maintain a healthy diet - Avoid food with lots of fat and preservatives that tend build up your cholesterol. Supplement with vitamins. If you can see the fat in the food, you can be sure it will affect your heart.
Watch the numbers - High blood pressure, hypertension, and high cholesterol level cab cause the heart to become abnormally larger and less efficient. Your LDL cholesterol levels or bad cholesterol should be 130 mg. or less per deciliter. If you have more than one risk factor, your cholesterol level should be less than 70 mg. per deciliter. Here are some numbers game for a healthy heart:
Blood pressure
- Normal: lower than 120/80
- PreHypertension: 120/80 to 139/89
- Hypertension: 140/90 and higher
- Desirable: Less than 200 mg/dl
- Borderline high: 200 to 239
- High: 240 and up
- Protective: 60 mg/dl and up
- Moderate risk: 40 to 59
- Major risk: below 40
- Optimal: (particularly if you have other risk factors, like diabetes) Less than 100 mg/dl
- Near optimal: 100 to 129
- Borderline high: 130 to 159
- High: 160 and above
- Healthy: less than 100 mg/dl
- Prediabetes: 100 to 125
- Diabetes: 126 or higher
Heart disease is a perennial number one in the list of top killer diseases. The beauty of heart disease is that it can be prevented or, in some instances, slowed or reversed. Some factors that heighten your risk for heart disease - age, gender and family history - are out of your control, but others are within your power to change. Taking the following four steps can significantly cut your risk of having a heart attack and lower your overall risk for coronary artery disease:
- Don't smoke = Smoking accounts for 20 percent of all deaths from CAD, while exposure to secondhand smoke results in an estimated 38,000 to 40,000 cardiovascular deaths a year.
- Eat healthy diet and choose fats wisely = This can help keep blood fats -such as triglycerides and various forms of cholesterol- in balance. Considerable evidence favors including a daily source of omega-3 fatty acids (found in fish, flax seeds, walnuts and canola oil) to reduce your risk of heart disease. Soy protein and nuts may help too.
- Exercise regularly = It will help you lose weight, control blood pressure and balance cholesterol levels. Another largely unrecognized benefit of exercise is reduction of a blood clotting factor called fibrinogen. Excessive levels of fibrinogen have identified as a cardiac risk factor.
- Control your blood pressure = Manage your blood pressure though diet, lowered salt intake, exercise and stress reduction programs and drugs if necessary. High blood pressure may be the biggest preventable killer in the world. Yet only a small portion of the millions of the people diagnosed with hypertension have the problem under control.
- Aspirin
- Cholesterol lowering wonder drugs called statins, which have few side effects and some surprissng benefits, such as stroke reduction and, possibly, osteoporossis prevention.
- Folic acid, B6, and B12 supplements, which help depress levels of an amino acid called homo cysteine. Research connects high levels of homo cysteine with a three fold risk with heart attack in men and suggests even modestly elevated levels may promote atherosclerosis ( the process by which an accumulation of fatty plaques eventually narrow an artery) in men and women.
- Other medictions, such as beta blockers and angiotensin-converting enzyme.
Heart attack or other cardiovascular disease are one of the reasons why hundred and thousands of women die every year. What many people, including many health care professionals, don't realize is that the symptoms of heart attack in women are often different than in men. Women are more likely to experience nausea, dizziness, and anxiety as symptoms that indicate a heart attack. Here are some signs and symptoms of women heart attack:
- Excessive Sudden Fatigue.
- Chest pain, pressure and fullness.
- Jaw pain pressure, or numbness.
- New pain or pressure in the arms (deep aching and throbbing in one or both arms) neck or upper back.
- Feeling of heaviness, such as pressure-like chest pain between the breasts that may radiate to the left arm or shoulder.
- Shortness of breath and/or inability to catch your breath when waking up.
- Cold sweat.
- Dizziness--unexplained light headedness, possible blackouts.
- Anxiety--unusual nervousness, feelings of impending doom.
- Edema--fluid retention and swelling usually of the ankles or lower legs.
- Fluttering--rapid heartbeats, palpitations.
- Nausea--gastric upset.
- Pressure or fullness in the upper abdomen.
Heart Attack and other cardiovascular diseases is the number one cause of death in women and it is the most preventable cause of death. Women should pay particular attention to these signs and symptoms and seek immediate advice from a specialist or health care professional if these signs and symptoms happens.
Chocolate: Everybody's favorite, but choose the dark one or dark chocolate, european kind is rich in nutrients called flavonols, which lower both blood pressure and LDL cholesterol.
Red Wine: Grape skins contain the antioxidant resveratrol, which helps prevent blood clots and the stiffenng of heart tissue. In addition, alcohol of heart tissue. In addition alcohol raises HDL or "good" cholesterol.
Nuts: Almonds, walnuts macadamias, and hazelnuts are high in monounsaturated fat, which lowers LDL or "bad" cholesterol without reducing HDL They are also rich source of vitamin E (a powerful antioxidant) and of The amino acid arginine, which helps keep artery walls healthy. Walnuts, in addition, protect against clotting and arrhythmia. But keep nut to an ounce a day: They're also high in calories.
Olive oil: As a monounsaturated fat, its good for your cholesterol numbers. In addition, dressing your salad with a little olive oil or using it to saute leafy green vegetables will help you absorb the nutrients in those vegetables
Avocados: True, they're high in fat, but it's the healthy monounsaturated fat kind. Chemicals in avocado also inhibit cholesterol absorption and protect against hypertension.
Wow these foods are not bad at all, all are good for our heart, just eat it in moderation enjoy!!!
"Cigarettes smoking is dangerous to our health" this are the words we usually ignore when we by a pack of cigarettes. If you ask a smoker what are the good things they get from smoking, i think no one can answer a very positive answer, but still many are addicted to it. but if you ask what are the bad things you could get from smoking here are the top 5:
5. Halitosis or Bad Breath: No one wants a bad breath
4. Emphysema and Chronic bronchitis: Symptoms are hard to breath, continuous coughing, and too much phlegm in our lungs.
3. Heart Disease: the smoke of a cigarette retrograde to the oxygen that we breath, then oxygen combine with the blood that circulate around our body system , and then blood will go back to our heart with the chemicals that we get from the smoke of the cigarette. This is the cause of heart disease.
2. Cancer in the mouth, throat and esophagus: because cigarettes contains nicotine, carbon monoxide, at tar this chemicals causes cancer
1. Cancer in the lungs: This is the best disease that you could get in smoking cigarettes, and sometimes people who smoke don't even know and its too late after they know it that he has a lung cancer.
Still there are some bad things you could get from smoking cigarettes like teeth gets discolored, fingertips turns yellow, turns you into addict in smoking, smelly clothes, gets tired easily. and so much more.
Pregnant women who smokes can affects his unborn child because of chemicals that she inhale while smoking.
There are people that already stop from smoking but suddenly they keep coming back.
There are many ways to stop us from smoking, the only thing that we have to have is discipline and determination if we don't have this I'm sure we can not get away with our smoking problems even if its the best way or method on the market.
