How's Your Heart?
Let’s talk about your heart. Not your passion, but the incredible blood pumping muscle in your chest. This bag of muscle will beat over 3 Billion times in your life to move oxygen and nutrient rich blood to all your body parts. When it fails or is damaged, we call it heart disease. These diseases include heart vessel blockages, heart attacks, irregular heart rhythms, and heart failure. Heart disease is the leading killer of both men and women in America causing 1 in every 4 deaths. It affects all races, ages, and economic levels. It is however way more common in the Southern states of America, not good for us.
The good news is many of the causes of heart disease can be reversed making simple changes on your own. Here are the main issues leading to heart damage that you can work on right now:
· Physical Inactivity: Get moving! Regular exercise (at least 5 days a week) like walking or riding a bike can really protect your heart.
· Unhealthy Diet: Our diets have too much sugar and carbohydrates that lead to inflammation and blood vessel damage. Also we eat too much processed food with bad kinds of fats and not enough good fruits and vegetables. On top of that we eat too much food most of the time. Changing to a healthy diet will make your heart smile.
· Diabetes (high blood sugar): Most people that have heart attacks have underlying sugar issues. Controlling blood sugar with diet and exercise and even medication is critical for heart protection.
· Obesity: This is a huge problem across America but even worse in the south. It stems from lack of physical activity, poor diets, over-eating and lack of education about proper nutrition. Obesity leads to higher blood pressure and blood sugar which all lead to heart damage. There are programs to really help you lose weight.
· Tobacco Smoking: Smoking spreads chemicals throughout your body that damages blood vessels. It also causes high blood pressure putting more pressure on the heart. Stopping smoking while not easy can be done.
· Excessive Alcohol Use: Drinking too much alcohol leads to a poor diet and excessive sugar in the body as well as obesity. Limiting alcohol will make your heart happy.
We would love to help you have a happy and healthy heart. We provide extended cardiovascular testing right here in our office to provide our patients with cutting edge information on heart disease risk.
Only you can make the changes listed about, but we are here to help.
Hears to your HAPPY HEART!
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