- Home
- Heart Health
Confusion About Who Should Take A Statin
Do you have a healthy heart? Have you had a checkup recently?
This may be a good time to book that appointment and find out for you definitely want to be aware of the risk you’re under don’t you?
But questions remain about who should be taking them
Many doctors already prescribe statins to people who have not yet had a heart problem, but figuring out who might benefit most from the drugs is a challenge.
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), a panel of experts that is commissioned to comb through existing studies of health issues and come up with recommendations, attempts to address that question with its latest advice. The group says that the weight of evidence suggests that statins can help middle-aged people who have not yet had heart problems avoid them if they have a greater than 10% risk of having a heart attack or stroke in the next 10 years.
But some people think the recommendations do little to clarify the situation.
Doctors can calculate their 10-year risk by plugging certain information into a web-based calculator formulated by the American Heart Association (AHA) and the American College of Cardiology (ACC). In 2013, the two groups debuted this revised algorithm, along with their recommendation that people with a 7.5% or greater risk of heart events in the next 10 years consider taking a statin to reduce that risk. In their previous advice, based primarily on the so-called Framingham risk factors that emerged from a decades-long study of what contributed to heart disease, the experts set the statin threshold at a 10% or greater risk. The lower cutoff made millions more people eligible to take a statin and created controversy, as some heart doctors questioned whether all of those people would actually benefit—especially since the drugs carry some side effects, including muscle problems and a possibly higher risk of diabetes. Some cardiologists argue that those risks aren’t worth it for people who do not yet have any symptoms of heart disease…
Vitamin D Can Help Lower Risk Of Heart Diseases
Are you getting enough vitamin D? You’ve probably heard about the need to get enough exposure to sunlight and maybe even about the specific foods that contain this essential vitamin but how much of this vitamin D does one actually need?
Here is a story about a brand new study that gives you the answer to that important question so I suggest you read on:
Heart disease is the leading cause of death worldwide and efforts to prevent this debilitating illness are vital. A new study says that adequate amount of vitamin D can help lower the risk of heart disease but how much of this vitamin is helpful enough?
Vitamin D is a nutrient that has many good health effects to the body including healthy bones, muscles, heart, lungs and brain. It also contributes to the body’s ability to fight infection. Previous studies have pointed that vitamin D deficiency was a precursor for the occurrence of many illnesses including heart disease.
However, the adequate amount in the body needed to ward off such diseases is unclear until now. Researchers at the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute have found that patients’ hearts are free from heart trouble if their vitamin D level is above 15 nanograms per milliliter.
In the past, doctors recommend having vitamin D levels above 30 ng/mL, but according to the researchers, any amount higher than 15 ng/mL can be accepted as safe levels. With their findings presented at the 2015 American Heart Association (AHA) Scientific Session, evidence and research backed up this claim providing statistically sound data.
“Even if any level above 15 is safe, one out of 10 people still have vitamin D levels lower than that,” lead researcher Dr. J. Brent Muhlestein, co-director of cardiovascular research at the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute said in a press release.
Vitamin D is a unique vitamin because the body can produce its own vitamin D from exposure of the skin to sunlight. Eating foods rich in this vitamin like egg yolks, fish, fish liver oils and some dairy products can also be helpful…
Cut the fryer fat to boost heart health
Here’s a brilliant move by some smart Canadian hospitals you want to read about and then consider to follow their example and get rid of that machine in your own kitchen:
Hospitals in Eastern Ontario are working to get the deep fryers out of their cafeterias in a bid to improve healthy options for patients, visitors and staff — a development health advocates welcome.
Removing deep fryers, dropping super-sized drinks and cutting sodium content are three of the measures hospitals are taking as part of the Healthy Foods in Champlain Hospitals initiative. All 20 hospitals in the region have signed on the program voluntarily.
“Hospitals really should be the role models for healthy eating because we deal with the after effects of unhealthy eating,” Sabine Mersmann, vice-president of patient service in seniors and community care at Pembroke Regional Hospital, tells Yahoo Canada News.
Healthy Foods is an initiative of Champlain Cardiovascular Disease Prevention Network, which focuses on reducing cardiovascular disease in the area by cutting risk factors like high sodium consumption, obesity, high blood pressure and low consumption of fruits and vegetables.
The goals of Healthy Foods in Champlain Hospitals are to both remove less-healthy options from hospitals in the region while offering both more healthier options and more nutritional information.
Pembroke Regional Hospital has just achieved the bronze level of the program, which means removing deep fryers and deep-fried options from hospital cafeterias and gift stores, and providing clear nutritional information for their entrees. Changes have already been made in the cafeterias in hospitals in Pembroke, Renfrew, Almonte, Arnprior, Carleton Place, Kemptville and Winchester.
“That went over fairly well and was actually, for the kitchen, a great initiative and they’re very proud of it,” Mersmann says.
Health advocates have long called for measures like the Healthy Foods initiative. A 2008 editorial in the Canadian Medical Association Journal called for healthier options in hospitals, reading “despite nutrition’s indisputable role as one of our most important determinants of health, grassroots calls for hospital cafeteria reform often face resistance from hospital administrators and even some allied health professionals.”…
How The ‘Right’ Amount Of Sleep Boosts Heart Health
Are you sleeping enough? I try to get at least 7 hours and when I somehow don’t get that amount of sleep I just don’t feel all that great and so I recommend that you have a look at the results of this new study that shows how important it is for your overall health and than you might just wnat to change your sleeping habits too:
Providing even more evidence that sleep is an essential activity for bodily health, a new study finds that an improper amount of it is linked to markers of heart disease. Previous studies have certainly suggested similar results, but this new one measures the health of the arteries in a couple of different ways, and suggests some possible mechanisms for the connection. Like other studies have found, there seems to be a Goldilocks effect for the right amount of sleep: Seven hours per night seems to be the sweet spot. But sleeping much less or much more than this both seem to pose some problems.
The new study, published in the American Heart Association journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology, looked at data from 47,000 people in Korea who filled out questionnaires about their sleep habits. They’d also all had tests to measure calcium buildup in the coronary arteries, and other tests to measure arterial stiffness.
It turned out that people who slept five or fewer hours a night had 50% more calcium buildup in their arteries compared to those who slept seven hours. And sleeping more was not necessarily better: Those who slept an average of nine or more hours had 70% more calcium buildup, again compared to those who slept for seven. And finally, the quality of sleep is also important as its quantity: People who said they had poor sleep quality (waking up multiple times throughout the night) had 20% more calcium compared to seven-hour-a-night’ers.
Similar effects were found for blood vessel stiffness. ”We also observed a similar pattern when we measured arterial stiffness,” said study author Yoosoo Chang. “Adults with poor sleep quality have stiffer arteries than those who sleep seven hours a day or had good sleep quality. Overall, we saw the lowest levels of vascular disease in adults sleeping seven hours a day and reporting good sleep quality.”..
Grip strength may predict future heart health issues
Here’s an interesting article by Joel Kahn author of the “whole heart solution” about a study published recently about a new method used to monitor potential future heart health issues.
Getting a Grip on Heart Health
I am fascinated by offbeat clues to the presence and significance of heart disease. A death due to cardiovascular disease occurs every 45 seconds and any and all tools to prevent it are welcome. I have written before here about my campaign to prevent one million heart attacks. Findings like earlobe creases, central balding, erectile dysfunction, and exertional leg pain can lead to the diagnosis of heart disease and life saving therapies. But who would anticipate that grip strength would predict future heart deaths? Or that grip strength exercises using isometrics are an effective therapy for elevated blood pressure?
In terms of grip strength and heart outcome, researchers assessed whether this simple and inexpensive evaluation could predict future cardiac and deaths. In the Prospective Urban-Rural Epidemiology (PURE) study 139,691 subjects aged 35-70 years had an assessment of grip strength, measured using a dynamometer and were followed for 4 years. Grip strength was inversely associated with all-cause mortality, cardiovascular mortality, heart attacks, and stroke! A big surprise was that grip strength was a stronger predictor of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality than systolic blood pressure which is the focus of so much treatment. While the mechanism by which hand grip strength impacts outcome is not clear, it has been proposed that it is a marker of overall muscular strength and biological age…
Get up for your heart health and move for your waistline
Well you definitely might want to reconsider your current sitting down vs walking around or standing habits for a new study shows changing to the latter could seriously improve both your waistline as your chances of avoiding diabetes and heart diseases:
Just two hours of pottering around your house or office each day could take three inches off your waistline, a study suggests.
Those who spending less time sitting and more time walking are more likely to be thinner, healthier and at lower risk of diabetes and heart disease.
Using activity monitors, researchers tracked 782 men and women for a whole week, calculating how long each participant spent lying down, sitting, standing or walking.
They compared the activity data with each volunteer’s blood pressure, height, weight and waist circumference, and took blood samples to check their sugar, fat and cholesterol levels.
The team, led by the University of Queensland, Australia, found that people who spent more time standing rather than sitting had, on average, lower blood sugar, less fat in the blood and lower cholesterol levels.
People spend nine hours on average sitting down – 60 per cent of the time they spend awake.
But the study, published in the European Heart Journal, found that those who spent two hours longer each day walking rather than sitting had waistlines that were smaller, on average, by 7.5cm (nearly 3 inches) and body mass index that was 11 per cent lower.
For a woman of 5’6’’, the drop in BMI is equivalent to a 1.5 stone weight loss, from 11 stone to 9 stone 7lb.
Researcher Dr Genevieve Healy, senior research fellow at the school of public health at Queensland University, said: ‘We found that time spent standing rather than sitting was significantly associated with lower levels of blood sugar and blood fats.
‘Replacing sitting time with stepping was also associated with a significant reduction in waistline and BMI.
The associations it reveals are consistent with what is known already about the benefits of a non-sedentary lifestyle. More work is needed to understand cause and effect.’
The authors suggested that office workers should be encouraged to walk around at work – and use stand-up desks rather than sitting for hours in front of a computer screen.
Dr Healy added: ‘These findings provide important preliminary evidence that strategies to increase the amount of time spent standing or walking rather than sitting may benefit the heart and metabolism of many people.
‘Get up for your heart health and move for your waistline….
Can a wider use of statins save lives?
If you’re subject to potential heart health issues you might want to talk to your doctor about the findings of a new study that has just been published:
Wider use of statins could save thousands of lives, report says
New expert guidelines from two major cardiologists’ groups may boost doctors’ ability to spot patients who should take cholesterol-lowering statin drugs, researchers said.
The updated guidelines were released in 2013 by the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association. Now, a new report finds they are more accurate and efficient than earlier guidelines in identifying adults at high risk for heart trouble who could gain from statins.
All of that should add up to lives saved, the researchers said.
“Extrapolating our results to the approximately 10 million U.S. adults who would be newly eligible for statin therapy under the new guidelines, we estimate that between 41,000 and 63,000 cardiovascular events — heart attacks, strokes or deaths from cardiovascular disease — would be prevented over a 10-year period,” lead researcher Dr. Udo Hoffman, a cardiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, said in a hospital news release.
The new guidelines are also better at identifying low-risk patients who do not need to take the drugs, his team noted.
The findings are published July 15 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The 2013 guidelines replace a former advisory to doctors published in 2004. The new guidelines focus more specifically on the use of statins — drugs such as Crestor, Lipitor and Zocor — to prevent heart disease by lowering “bad” LDL cholesterol.
The updated criteria also broaden prevention efforts to focus on all forms of heart disease.
Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/wider-use-of-statins-could-save-thousands-of-lives-report-says/
Low Carb for Better Heart Health
Low Carb for Better Heart Health
If you’ve recently decided to get healthy, and your biggest concern is getting the weight off so you can lower your statistics and improve your mobility and energy levels, you may have run across low carb dieting as one option for you to consider.
There are so many ways of losing weight. You can count calories. You can cut fat. You can exercise more. You can give up gluten. You can do mindful eating. And all of these methods will contribute to the shedding of pounds.
Many people think that the way to shed fat is to cut fat out of their diet. It does work to some degree, but as an overweight individual, it’s likely that you suffer from food cravings and possible emotional eating – and cutting fat is the polar opposite of what will help your cravings issue.
Fat (and there are healthy and bad forms) is what gives your body a satisfied feeling. That’s why you see so many obese individuals hooked on diet sodas. They never get that satisfied feeling from diet drinks, so they want more food – more drinks – in order to finally feel full.
In the Annals of Internal Medicine, a clinical trial showed that low carb dieters, who retained fat consumption, lost more weight and lowered their important health stats (such as triglycerides and cholesterol) than low fat participants did.
Not only that, but their HDL (good cholesterol) actually rose! Maybe this is because consumers have a warped view of what fat actually is. They hear the word fat and they automatically think cupcakes and sundaes and things like that.
Those are fatty, sure – but they’re laden with unhealthy carbs. Healthy fats, like avocado, olive oil, and other fat food items, help your body work better and improve your overall health.
“But wait! Don’t I need carbs for energy?”
Not really. Your body acts like a hybrid car. It can use either carbs or your fat stores. Like a car can use gas or electricity. The problem is, high carb eaters continue feeding their body carbs and it never gets to switch over to the fat stores.
Not only that, but anything is doesn’t use in the carb department, turns into more fat in your body, contributing to obesity. With a low carb diet, you get several major benefits:
- You never feel hungry because the fat satisfies you.
- Cravings for sugar disappear in the first two weeks.
- You can adjust your carb intake based on the amount of weight you want to lose, or if you’re maintaining your current weight.
So low carb diets don’t mean no carb diets. It just means you’re using just enough carbs to give your body energy, and then allowing your body to target the fat stores for the rest of your day!
That seems pretty fair.
You’ll drop weight. You’ll gain energy. Your stats will improve. You’ll be more active, and your heart will become stronger because of it.
Let’s look at how you can get started on a low carb diet for better heart health.
Make Sure You’re Ready to Commit
Any diet is a new lifestyle because you’re not implementing old, bad habits. Any diet will be uncomfortable if you have a mindset that you’re missing something. Really, this is an emotional decision.
You have to be ready for – no, craving – change.
If you really want to lose weight and get healthy, it means you have to do something different than what you’re doing now.
Yes. You’re going to feel deprived of something. Depending on which diet you do, you might miss sugar, or grains, or volume of food – but something has to give. One thing you can do is let yourself tally up all the days, months and years you spent doing whatever you wanted in terms of eating.
You had your free ride. It’s time for some self discipline, but only those who truly care about themselves – their health, their future, and being there for their family, will stick to any diet.
With low carb, you won’t feel hungry. You may miss carbs initially, during the first two weeks, but you will need to realize that those times you want to put food in your mouth – it because of habits and emotions, not hunger.
Before you commit to this plan, or any plan, ask yourself what you’ll do when you instantly think, “I want to eat?” Many people find that eating was their life. Any downtime from work or events was spent eating – in front of the TV, in the car, while on the phone…wherever.
It’s time, not only for you to get your eating under control – but for you to also start living life again! Find happiness outside of food. Because it exists. You might pick up a hobby or journal or even do something like home improvement projects – but let it replace food, because food is crippling your longevity and your lifestyle happiness.
Slow or Fast Weight Loss?
Here’s the thing about low carb living…
You can either cut a lot of carbs and shed a lot of weight fast – or, you can cut fewer carbs and shed the weight slowly.
The choice is up to you.
If you have a large amount of weight to lose, such as 50 or more pounds, then you may want to go the faster route initially, and then slow down a bit for your last 15 or so pounds.
To begin burning fat stores quickly, you’ll want to go the low carb net 20 grams route. That means no more than 20 carbs per day.
Net carbs are when you tally the total carbs on the nutrition label, and subtract fibers and sugar alcohols.
So for instance, if a food had 6 total carbs, 1 g of fiber, and 2 sugar alcohols, you would calculate it as 6-1-2, which equals 3 net carbs.
One eye opening experiment you can do is tally up the amount of carbs you currently eat on a typical day, without trying to intentionally eat healthier. Then tally up the total carbs when you try to eat diet foods with less fat.
The carb numbers will shock you. The Institute of Medicine says that men typically eat 200-330 grams of carbs per day. Women consume 180-230 grams of carbs daily. That’s far too much, and is the reason we’re a nation – no, a world – with an obesity problem!
Anything under 130 carbs is technically considered low carb. The lower you go, the faster the weight comes off because your body uses up the carbs during the day and switches over to stored fat burning machine.
Ketosis or Not?
If you go the 20 grams of carbs and under route, then your body will go into ketosis. This can be a pleasant or irritating phase. Here’s what you need to know about choosing whether or not to go into ketosis…
If you want to lose a lot of weight fast, ketosis helps with this process. It speeds up your body’s ability to burn fat stores instead of carb loads. But if you want to go the 50 carbs and under route, you’ll still lose weight, but it’ll go more slowly than the ketosis path.
Ketosis has side effects, which differ from person to person. Some people feel incredible energy the first two weeks. They’re eating lots of protein and fat and feeling very good about the satiated feeling and ability to eat foods that taste good (unlike many cardboard-tasting diet foods). Cravings for sweets diminish quickly.
Other people have negative side effects, but it’s important to remember that they’re temporary. They’re just your body’s way of adjusting to the switch from carb burning to fat burning.
These include bad breath (which can be fixed with sugarless gum made with sorbitol, like Trident Perfect Peppermint), leg cramps from the decreased salt and potassium intake, and low energy.
There’s a fantastic fix for the energy and leg cramps issue. Chicken broth, in small increments of half a cup, restores your salt balance. It improves energy, just as it does when you’re sick with the flu.
Another thing you can do is eat potassium-rich foods for your carbs. These include things like:
- Pork Tenderloin (potassium equal to a banana!)
- Sirloin Steak
- Avocado
- Kale
- Salmon
- Spinach
When you add foods like these, your system will get the low carb foods it need to continue the upkeep of your potassium levels and you won’t suffer the side effects that others do when they don’t plan their menu appropriately.
As for the ketosis route, some people do it as a jumpstart to their weight loss, for 2 weeks only. Then they return to carbs in small increments, adding 2-5 carbs per week until they find a level where they’re continuing to lose weight, but get more food choices.
Others stay in ketosis (under 20 net carbs a day) until they’re at or near goal weight. Each time to get out of ketosis, such as having a splurge day on carbs, you have to start the process all over again.
So if you’re someone who does have negative side effects, you may want to watch it more carefully than someone who can come and go on ketosis without much difference in the way they feel.
Another drawback to getting into carb splurge days is that it wrecks your body’s ability to eliminate carb cravings for sweets. You’ll find that the more carbs you eat, the more you’ll want – and it’s usually in the form of sugar.
If you want to see how frightening the sugar addiction is, log onto Netflix and watch the documentary Fed Up. It’s about the government agreements with lobbyists and their marketing efforts to increase sugar in our diets under the guise of lowering fat (which is why you see so many fat free options now), contributing to the rise in obesity.
Shopping for Low Carb
If you make the decision to go low carb, you’ll need to start shopping and swapping out the foods you normally eat in your cabinets and fridge. Start with meats. On this diet, you don’t have to go lean – you can go for fat-laden meats that are rich in flavor.
By the way, if you want another reason to include plenty of fat in your diet, read up on how low fat diets contribute to Alzheimer’s risk. People who ate more fat kept their neurotransmitters intact, staving off dementia.
You can eat any meat – chicken, pork, beef, fresh, canned, and more. Just make sure if you go the canned route, you check to see how many carbs are in the food. And make sure you stock up on eggs!
Another thing you’ll want is fat. A low carb, high fat diet keeps you feeling satisfied. So choose things like block cheese (Colby Jack or Cheddar, for instance), sour cream, butter, and olive oil.
Look for the best low carb veggies you can get. These include spinach, kale, broccoli, okra, turnips, green beans, and more. Look up a list of low carb veggies and pick out the ones you want. Just avoid the starchy ones like corn and potatoes.
If you get anything like a tortilla wrap, shop for low carb versions. Most products labeled low carb will have the net carbs on the front of the packaging, but there might be some you have to calculate. Luckily, it’s easy math – subtraction!
What’s on a typical menu for low carb? Breakfast might be something like a 6 ounce tenderloin steak with 2 fried eggs. You could add s morning snack of an ounce of cheese.
For lunch, you could make a chicken salad using canned chicken breast, mayonnaise, and red onion and put it on a bed of baby spinach. Try drinking ½ cup of chicken broth for an afternoon snack. Then for dinner, eat a rotisserie chicken breast, turnip, asparagus, and cheese. Or have a Cornish game hen with some veggies on the side.
Once you start learning how many net carbs food items have, you’ll find it’s really easy to plan menus. Now if you’re out and about, you can easily eat at restaurants the low carb way.
Many places have the items if you just ask. Burger King, for instance, as a low carb burger. They serve it up without the bun! If you’re at a restaurant, you can ask for a bunless burger or get chicken that doesn’t have breading on it.
Watch out for sugarless products when you first start out on low carb diets. Just like ketosis, there are some people who will have a negative digestive reaction to them, while others find it enjoyable to have something sweet that doesn’t affect their body.
Atkins makes some really yummy chocolate candies that rival M&Ms, as well as brownie bars and shakes. Some low carb users claim it stalls their weight loss, while others love them.
Find your own personal stride on the low carb way of eating and join a support group on Facebook to help you get meal ideas and support through the process. Also, use the Atkins online tracker or an app on your smart phone to track your net carbs.
One more tip…
If you’re really shooting for heart health, don’t guess at it. Go to your doctor and get a complete blood panel that shows all of your health stats. That way, three months from now, you can go back for an updated blood panel and see just how well the low carb lifestyle is contributing to your heart’s health!
Living a low carb lifestyle is certainly an adjustment. You’ll love being able to eat meats and fats, and no longer feeling hungry while dieting. You will miss sweets initially, but there are low carb desserts you can learn to make like chocolate mousse, for instance.
Love coffee and tea? You can still have them! Invest in stevia sweeteners like Truvia, instead of the aspartame sweeteners that leave an aftertaste, and sweeten your coffee or tea with heavy cream and Truvia.
Some switches will be so simple to make – and you won’t be able to taste the difference. You can find sugarless or low sugar dressings, condiments like ketchup, and more. They still have fat to leave the taste in, but the sugar is gone, and so are your cravings!
How Does Alcohol Affect Your Heart Health?
How Does Alcohol Affect Your Heart Health?
We know that alcohol does affect your heart health, but what needs further explaining is that the effect can be either positive or negative. The difference depends on how much you drink.
Drinking in excess negatively affects your heart and can lead to a disease of the heart muscle called cardiomyopathy, or an irregular heartbeat, a stroke and high blood pressure.
Plus too much alcohol can lead to unhealthy eating decisions, which when teemed with the empty calories in alcohol leads to weight gain. Research has shown that people consume 20% more calories when they drink alcoholic beverages (even just one) before eating. When the calories from the alcohol were added in, it ended up being a 33% increase. Excess weight can lead to a whole host of health issues by itself, beside those caused by excessive drinking.
If you already have high blood pressure, have had heart failure, have a history of stroke in your family, or have higher than normal triglycerides, you should not drink alcohol at all as alcohol significantly raises your risk for a heart-related event – none of which are good. Besides damaging your heart, it can also cause:
- liver disease
- certain kinds of cancer
- peptic ulcers
- depression
- brain damage
- death and injury from accidents
And of course pregnant women should not drink at all. Drinking in excess can cause fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) which has been proven to cause mental retardation, central nervous system damage, growth problems, head and face deformities and behavioral problems. Because physicians don’t know at what level alcohol causes FAS, they recommend abstaining from drinking at all while pregnant.
However, moderate drinking for some people may actually help their heart. It can:
- Raise the good HDL cholesterol
- Lower blood pressure
- Stop blood from clotting in veins and arteries
- Prevent heart attacks
- Prevent damage from high LDL, the bad cholesterol
Moderate drinking is defined as one drink per day for women or two drinks per day for men of the following:
- 12 ounces of beer
- 5 ounces of wine
- 1.5 ounces of 80-proof liquor
- 1 ounce of 100-proof liquor
Studies have shown that moderate alcohol consumption can actually reduce the risk of heart disease by 25%, which in part is caused by the increase in HDL cholesterol. Data from 84 other studies support these findings by concluding people that only had one alcoholic drink per day experienced a reduced risk of heart disease by 14-25%.
The key to reaping the positive heart health benefits from drinking alcohol is moderation and controlling the number of calories consumed while drinking.
What is the Best Type of Aerobic Exercise for Preventing Heart Disease?
What is the Best Type of Aerobic Exercise for Preventing Heart Disease?
Aerobic exercise is great for keeping your heart healthy. Heart attacks, stroke and heart disease can all be prevented with a smart diet and consistent exercise plan. Basically, any physical activity that gets your heart beating quicker than normal is great for heart health. This moves oxygen throughout your body, which keeps your internal and external processes and body parts healthy and happy.
One of the best ways to accomplish this is through aerobic exercise.
Think of aerobic physical activity as medium to above average in intensity, and continuing for an extended period of time.
In other words, heart-pumping activities like running, swimming and cycling are aerobic in nature. They elevate your heart rate and keep that accelerated level sustained with a moderate to above average level of intensity.
So, what is the single best type of aerobic activity for preventing heart disease? As we just mentioned, enjoying a few laps in the pool, jogging around your block or bicycling on your favorite nature trail are all great ways to promote heart health.
However, for multiple reasons, the best heart healthy aerobic exercise is …
Walking at a brisk pace.
Yes, as hard as it may be to believe, simply walking at an above average rate of speed can impact your heart in a positive manner. Running and cycling, body weight training and hitting the treadmill are all excellent aerobic exercises.
However, they cause a greater impact on your joints.
This can lead to physical problems in both the short and long-term. Additionally, in the early part of the 21st century, health professionals, doctors, and physical trainers have discovered that lengthy periods of running and biking can actually take years off of your life!
To effectively benefit from the aerobic benefits of brisk walking, remember this.
You only need 2.5 to 3.5 hours of moderately intense physical activity each week to boost your heart health. Some studies have shown that 5 or more hours of aerobic activity weekly does more physical damage than good, even shortening your life span.
So get walking. Walk around your office building at lunchtime. Walk to and from work if you can. Walk instead of driving whenever possible. Schedule 3 to 5 brisk walking sessions of 30 to 45 minutes each week.
Your heart and body will benefit from this extremely efficient, low-impact aerobic exercise, and you won’t experience the pounding, high-impact dangers that some aerobic exercises deliver.