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.
Any exercise will do as long as that gets its rate up and keeps it there for at least 20 to 30 minutes. That generally means any aerobic activity, whether its running, swimming, cycling, or brisk walking. The best exercise for the heart are those that sustain our heart rate for a long time. Consider doing aerobics workouts several days a week and combining them with strength training, yoga, or Pilates. Your cardiovascular system will reap the rewards, and so will the rest of your body.
The right intensity when it comes to our heart is working out harder isn't necessarily better. You should aim for moderate intensity 50 to 70 percent of your maximum heart rate. A more vigorous pace won't do any damage, but you won't be able to keep it up for a long period of time. And sustaining the elevated rate is what benefits you. You're better off doing 30 minutes of moderate exercise than 10 minutes of hard exercise.
How to know if we are in the right intensity? Here's how Think of a scale from 1 to 10 with 1 being the slowest possible exercise pace and 10 the most vigorous. Aim for an intensity of 6 or 7 so your working hard but not exhausting yourself. Or crunch some numbers: To find your target heart rate, subtract your age from 220 and multiply the result by 0.6 (for moderately intense activity). That's what you should shoot for.
Can exercising too hard cause a heart attack? If you're already fit no. But if you've been sedentary, doing too much too fast can put undue strain on our heart, the same way it can in any muscle. If you haven't been exercising at all, clear it with your doctor first. Then gradually increase how much you do.
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.
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.
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!!!
Patient who suffers from heart attack are commonly half of their body becomes paralyzed, they call it hemiplegia left or right part of the body becomes paralyzed. The cause of hemiplegia ie stroke or cerebro vascular accident in medicine term.
Our body is controlled by two parts of our brain, the left part of the brain controls the right part of our body, and the right part of the brain controls the left part of the body. In cases were in their right part of their body are paralyzed the left part of their brain are mostly affected by heart attack.
High blood pressure is the most common cause of stroke, if a patient has high blood pressure, the blood are fast and heavy running through his veins. Because of this pressure of blood, the wall of veins are wounded, if the veins got wounded because of high blood pressure platelets and collagen from the body system enters the veins and starting to clog the veins, because of this clogging in our veins the blood cannot pass through our veins, the circulation of our blood will no be normal, this is why a person suffers from stroke.
There are anti-clotting drugs that can help, heaparin aspirin and dipyridamole are examples of it, they are effective in preventing clog veins, but in cases that there body are already paralyzed those drugs are no more effective in declogging the veins.
Physical Therapist can help patients who got paralyzed because of stroke, vitamin C and E are also helpful in patients who got paralyzed, For us to avoid stroke we must discipline our selves and avoid foods that trigger high blood pressure, like foods with high cholesterol, and stop smoking. Regular exercise is the most common way to help our blood circulate normally.
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