Cholesterol Health Assessment: Your Heart Disease Risk
July 30th 2011 23:20
Is Cholesterol Hurting Your Heart?
By RealAge
With our cholesterol assessment, you can get answers to commonly asked questions, learn about your heart attack risk factors and more. Take our short quiz and receive personalized recommendations about
Your risk for heart disease
What causes high cholesterol
What you can do to improve your cholesterol levels
Know Your Heart's Worst Enemies?
Whether you inherited them from your relatives or developed them on your own through couch lounging and pastrami munching, you can learn how to defeat the risk factors that may be making your heart old before its time. All you need is a plan.
7-Step Action Plan for a Healthy Heart
Check out this simple healthy-heart plan from YOU: The Owner's Manual
By RealAge Page 1 of 1
When it comes to the health of your heart, what you do and what you don't do can truly make a difference. That's because lifestyle choices -- like smoking, poor diet, and lack of exercise -- can be far more dangerous than hereditary factors.
Here's a step-by-step plan that will help you make smart choices and help get your ticker in top form.
Action 1: Pump Your Heart
For optimal health, you'll need to do enough physical activity to burn between 3,500 and 6,500 calories a week (or roughly 500 to 950 a day). Most of that calorie loss comes from everyday tasks, but science shows that you'll also need about 60 minutes a week of stamina training -- cardiovascular exercise that gets your heart rate up and makes you breathe harder. Here's what to do:
Do at least three 20-minute cardio workouts a week. A few brisk walks will do it.
Action 2: Know Your Numbers
We're talking the big three -- cholesterol, blood pressure, and blood sugar -- plus, two more you should probably know: homocysteine and C-reactive protein. Consider these numbers a stock ticker for your ticker. They tell you how you're doing, and when you need to do more. When you have them measured, make sure your doctor also tells you what your goal levels should be and what you can do to get there. Getting more active, losing weight, and making smart food choices can help get these numbers in a healthy range.
Action 3: Get Happy
There are lots of reasons to be happy, including your heart health. Negative emotions like anger and hostility can raise blood pressure. People with depression are four times more likely to have a heart attack. And while we don't understand how emotional stress causes physical stress, we do know there's a powerful connection. To get yourself in a better mind-set, adopt a more positive outlook and manage daily stressors. Here's a quick tool that can help you do that.
Action 4: Eat Your Heart Out
When making out your grocery list, follow this simple rule of thumb: opt for foods with healthful fats, fiber, and good-for-you nutrients like flavonoids, vitamins, and minerals. And nix the salty, sugary, sat-fat-laden, or processed stuff. Here are six foods you should feed your heart regularly.
Action 5: Learn from Your Relatives
Even though you have a lot of control over your own heart-healthy destiny, a family history of heart disease does raise your risk significantly. So, along with talking to your doctor about a schedule of heart screenings, talk about your family health history, too. And if Mom, Dad, or a sibling developed heart disease, you'll want to be extra vigilant about screenings and about adopting heart-smart habits.
Action 6: Pop Some Pills
Certain nutrients, supplements, and occasional medications can work preventive wonders for your heart. Here are the YOU Docs' top picks:
Aspirin: Taking aspirin regularly may reduce the incidence of heart attack by making blood platelets less sticky and decreasing arterial inflammation. But it only makes sense for men over the age of 35 and women over the age of 40. And even then, check with your doctor first, because aspirin can have side effects like stomach irritation and bleeding. Here's more on the benefits.
A multivitamin: Your multivitamin is chock-full of heart-healthy micronutrients, like magnesium, calcium, and vitamins D, C, E, and A.
Folate: This B vitamin lowers homocysteine to healthy levels. Since folate from food is only partially absorbed by your body, take a 400-microgram (folic acid) supplement. But make sure you're getting enough B6 and B12, too, because folate can mask a deficiency in these vitamins.
Action 7: Schedule Sleep
If you don't snooze 6 to 8 hours a night, you increase arterial aging and raise your risk of a heart attack. Inadequate sleep will also cause you to release less serotonin (the feel-good hormone) in your brain. The result: You may seek out other, less healthful ways to feel good, like noshing on sugary foods or tipping too many martinis.
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Think you know how your heart really works?
Heart Check
Get to know how your heart really works -- and what it may be trying to tell you -- with these tips from YOU: The Owner's Manual
By RealAge Page 1 of 1
When you feel your own pulse pressing upward to your skin, what do you picture going on inside your body? Most of us picture the heart beating like a drum or like a ball being squeezed. But the heart really twists or wrings blood out like wringing water from a town, more than thumps. After that, it's on to the rest of the body.
See, your heart is like the main hub in a subway system, the place through which all trains must travel. Your arteries and veins are the tracks and tunnels, which transport passengers (blood) to stations throughout your body.
Now, what happens if there's a break in the tracks, or some kind of obstruction won't let the trains get through? In the case of the subway, you'd have some pretty irate customers. And in your body, if the blockage goes on long enough, it could shut down vital organs. Yep, we're talking total system failure.
To get a better idea of how things can go wrong, let's take a look inside.
Aging Arteries
When your arteries are clear and uninjured, blood can easily flow through them. But several things can throw a wrench into this process, such as:
Nicks: Factors you can largely control, such as high blood sugar, high blood pressure, cigarette smoking, and high homocysteine, can nick the smooth inner layer of the arteries.
Clogs: When a nick forms, your body rushes to repair the wound with cholesterol. And in its zeal to heal, it slaps on the bad stuff (LDL cholesterol) like too much plaster over a hole. This triggers inflammation, which signals white cells to invade the area.
Clots: The resulting plaque becomes irritated and ruptures, which prompts a blood clot to form. And if the clot suddenly closes off the artery -- Boom! It can cause a heart attack, a stroke, impotence, and memory loss.
Short-Circuiting
About half of people with coronary artery disease also develop electrical problems. The effect is irregular heartbeats, like atrial fibrillation. The miracle of today's medicine is that people prone to irregular rhythms can get an implant put into their chest that shocks the heart back to regular beats.
Leaky Plumbing
Heart valves keep blood from leaking backward into the chambers it has just left. The most common valve problem is mitral valve prolapse, in which the valve between the left atrium and left ventricle doesn't slam shut fully. The faulty process irritates the nerves in the atrium, which in turn can cause palpitations and sweating. The condition can be treated with medicine, but most people end up outgrowing it.
Taking Control
The good news is that you don't have to sit around and wait for stuff to go wrong inside your heart and arteries. There are things you can do right now to halt unnecessary aging and wear and tear. To see how you can keep your heart younger longer, check out this Live Younger 7-Step Action Plan for your heart.
More: Help prevent a heart attack with these 12 heart-healthy habits
Preventing Heart Attacks
Although there’s no surefire way for preventing heart attacks, some simple changes can help you lead a healthier lifestyle and keep medical problems at bay. Learn how to reduce cholesterol, lower your blood pressure naturally, and stick to a heart-healthy diet. With our delicious recipes, tips and information, you can change your lifestyle and prevent a heart attack.
Foods with Vitamin K -- Anti-Inflammatory Diet
Know what's super bad for your body? Inflammation. It's thought to be at the core of problems like heart disease and heart attacks.
Turmeric Benefits -- Clear Heart Arteries
For healthy, flexible, clog-free arteries, add more ethnic flare to your favorite dishes with this spice.
How to Lower Cholesterol Naturally with Walnuts
What do you get when you replace an afternoon M&M's habit with a handful of walnuts? Good and plenty.
Lower Sodium Intake, Lower Risk of Stroke
You may only need to cut a mere half teaspoon of salt from your diet to see a benefit to your heart and brain.
Give Your Blood Pressure This Daily Treat
Just 30 calories per day of chocolate may be enough to help reduce your blood pressure
Lowering Cholesterol Naturally with a PB&J
Next time you're yearning for something rich and creamy, here's an almost guilt-free indulgence your ticker will love: peanut butter.
Guard Your Heart with Quality Sleep
Still feeling tired when you wake up in the morning? And craving naps during the day?
How to Prevent Heart Disease -- The Benefits of Walking
Wondering if your walking routine is robust enough to really help your heart? Wonder no more.
Antioxidant Drinks for a Healthy Heart
Red wine isn't the only beverage that helps keep your arteries clear. Here are two other mighty fine choices: cranberry juice and tea.
Heart-Smart Recipe: Steel-Cut Oatmeal with Antioxidant Berries
A side of sliced strawberries with your steel-cut oatmeal may make for one heck of a smart breakfast combo.
A Good Night's Sleep Equals Heart-Healthy Living
Napping, sleeping in, going to bed early . . . we think of them as lazy indulgences. But your heart really wants you to do it.
Use the link above to learn more about your heart and lifestyle health
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Comment by Lester Caudill
Round Politics
I do have palpitations, but not in while now, I have plaque but an ultra sound didn't show any blockages.
The healthy foods are going to be added to my diet, but all my problems started when my liver decided to mess up.
Thanks for the help Katyzzz it is greatly appreciated, I will give this ago, and hopefully I can get to walking again soon, it's my disc, and weakness that prevents me for walking.
Comment by katyzzz
Photography Tips
MS Paint Art
You seem to be having good success in other directions, well done.