{"id":2213,"date":"2016-09-14T12:19:18","date_gmt":"2016-09-14T12:19:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/?p=2213"},"modified":"2016-09-14T12:19:18","modified_gmt":"2016-09-14T12:19:18","slug":"be-fab-after-50-and-look-after-your-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/be-fab-after-50-and-look-after-your-heart\/","title":{"rendered":"Be fab after 50 and look after your heart"},"content":{"rendered":"

You\u2019d think that with all the fundraising efforts and media buzz that cancer was our biggest killer. But you\u2019d be wrong: it\u2019s heart disease. Heart disease kills more people than diabetes, infectious diseases and accidents put together. And yet, we don\u2019t tend to hear a lot about it these days.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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This wasn’t the case in the past. In the 1960s and 1970s, there was a big drive by Western governments to drive down rates of heart disease. <\/span>Senator McGovern launched the first dietary guidelines<\/span><\/a> designed to reduce heart disease rates in 1977. He, and other scientists saw heart diseases as an epidemic, and they wanted to do something about it.<\/span><\/p>\n

The truth is that most heart disease is preventable. And that\u2019s the message that the early pioneers wanted to get across. People just didn\u2019t get the disease in places like South Africa and Zimbabwe. And if they did, it was because they were eating a Western diet. Missionary doctors, like <\/span>Hugh Trowell<\/span><\/a>, went for decades without seeing a single case. And when they did finally find cases of the disease, it was always linked to the Western lifestyle. \u00a0It wasn\u2019t that heart disease was lower in places that ate a traditional diet. It was that it just didn\u2019t exist.<\/span><\/p>\n

There was, therefore, a big drive to <\/span>eat like Africans<\/span><\/a>. That meant eating less meat, more grains, and more vegetables. But the public was never really told the full extent of the effect of lifestyles on heart disease. Instead, they got a watered down version, advising them to eat \u201ca low-fat diet.\u201d Low-fat was never really the solution. It was a cover to protect the meat industry which could market low-fat cuts of meat. The real heart disease preventing diet was centered on whole foods and fresh vegetables. It was about eating foods in their natural, unprocessed form, and staying away from meat and processed foods.<\/span><\/p>\n

All of this has led to the situation we find ourselves in today. Special interests and dishonest journalists have fought to confuse us about the effect of lifestyle on heart disease. And that means we\u2019ve never really got the message that heart disease was something preventable.<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite all the lobbying, however, there are scientifically-backed ways you can look after your heart. Here\u2019s how.<\/span><\/p>\n

SCHEDULE A CHECKUP<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Research shows that people who get regular checkups have better health outcomes than those that don\u2019t. At your checkup, your doctor will measure your blood pressure and cholesterol. These measurements are important. High blood pressure and cholesterol are an indication that you\u2019re at risk of a more severe cardiovascular event. But it should be pointed out that they are not diseases in themselves. They\u2019re merely markers that your heart may not be healthy.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s also worth mentioning that the type of cholesterol you have is important in determining your overall heart health. Low-density, LDL cholesterol is the so-called \u201cbad\u201d cholesterol. This is the type of cholesterol most often found in the arterial plaques that kill people. Another type of cholesterol, HDL, cholesterol is often called good cholesterol. This is because it has a role in clearing the blood of LDL. The number that your doctor reports is important. They may report LDL cholesterol, in which case, you\u2019ll want a number that\u2019s below 70 mg\/dL. Or they may report total cholesterol, in which case, you\u2019ll want a number <\/span>lower than 150 mg\/dL<\/span><\/a>. Below these numbers the risk of getting heart disease almost completely vanishes.<\/span><\/p>\n

It should be emphasized that the \u201cnormal range\u201d is not normal. You might go to the doctors and get a reading of, say 200 mg\/dL. And your doctor will tell you that that\u2019s fine. In fact, if they know their stuff, they\u2019ll tell you that that\u2019s actually at the bottom end of the normal range. Most people\u2019s cholesterol is a bit higher than that. Unfortunately, what\u2019s normal for a population living in Kansas isn\u2019t normal in the grand scheme of human history. Sure, 200 mg\/dL might be low in the context of Kansas. But that\u2019s only because everybody there is living a western lifestyle and is sick. Go to places where people live in a traditional way and you\u2019ll find much lower cholesterol.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are, however, other good reasons to schedule a checkup with a doctor. Heart disease isn\u2019t just one thing: it\u2019s lots of different diseases and conditions. For instance, your cholesterol might be fine, but you might have a heart arrhythmia. This is where your doctor will direct you to <\/span>afib solutions<\/span><\/a> to prevent the condition from becoming more serious.<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s also the possibility that your heart disease is caused by an infection you had earlier on in your life. If you\u2019ve ever had strep throat, the bacteria can get into your heart and weaken it. As a result, you can have unexpected heart problems, even if your cholesterol and <\/span>blood pressure<\/span><\/a> are rock-bottom.<\/span><\/p>\n

CONTROL CHOLESTEROL<\/strong><\/p>\n

So how do you go about controlling cholesterol and getting it below that magical 150 mg\/dL threshold? Most of the official advice out there is to eat \u201clean meats.\u201d But remember, this is exactly the advice that they ended up peddling back in the 1970s. It didn\u2019t work then, and it won\u2019t work now. The problem is that lean meat, like fish and turkey, still cause damage to your cardiovascular system. The only real way to get your cholesterol into the low range is to reduce the amount of meat you\u2019re eating. It\u2019s not just the fat and cholesterol in meat that causes the body to produce more blood cholesterol. It\u2019s a bunch of other factors in the food. The iron in meat, for instance, speeds up the oxidation of cholesterol. And this, in turn, makes it much more damaging to your arteries. There\u2019s also something called TMAO that\u2019s produced in our guts when we eat meat. Like heme iron in meat, <\/span>TMAO can also boost<\/span><\/a> cholesterol, even if the meat itself doesn\u2019t contain any.<\/span><\/p>\n

Controlling cholesterol isn\u2019t just about what you can\u2019t eat. It\u2019s also about what you can eat. However bad animal products might be for your heart, there\u2019s a bunch of plant foods that are incredibly good for it. Take kale, for instance. Kale, like most leafy greens, binds to the bile in your stomach, helping to lower cholesterol. Other plant foods, like oats, have also been shown to lower cholesterol levels dramatically.<\/span><\/p>\n

The interesting thing about plant foods is how they show that it\u2019s not just about low fat. Take nuts, for instance. Around 85 percent of the <\/span>calories in almonds<\/span><\/a> come from fat. And yet, almonds lower cholesterol. The same goes from practically every nut you can eat. They\u2019re all high in fat, but lower blood cholesterol. It shows that it\u2019s not just about whether something contains a lot of fat or not. It\u2019s about whether the nutrients are packaged up in the whole food. Nutrients, like fat and sugar, contained in whole food appear to be safe. But when they\u2019re not in whole foods, that\u2019s when the danger starts.<\/span><\/p>\n

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QUIT SMOKING<\/strong><\/p>\n

Back <\/span>in 1969, the Surgeon General released a report<\/span><\/a> on smoking. The report was the first that officially confirmed that smoking was devastating to health. It found that smoking increased heart disease risk by a whopping 150 percent. And remember, in 1969, heart disease rates were already at record levels.<\/span><\/p>\n

Quitting smoking is not easy, of course. But today, thanks to a bunch of help-to-quit products, it\u2019s a lot easier than in the past. Since 1969, smoking rates have steadily declined. So too has heart disease, on an age-standardized basis.<\/span><\/p>\n

CUT DOWN ON SALT<\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve listened to advice to <\/span>cut down salt<\/span><\/a> for decades. And yet, there\u2019s been something of a backlash against the advice. The problem is that the only way to make processed foods taste good is to add a huge amount of salt. Salt, however, raises blood pressure and stiffens arteries. And this is believed to contribute to heart attacks, strokes, and death. The food industry doesn\u2019t like the fact that scientists keep finding that salt is bad for our health. And so they pay journalists to confuse the truth. Now many people don\u2019t focus on salt as a health issue.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Salt comes in many different forms and varieties. You might see it on food labels as sodium citrate, MSG or sodium hydroxide. You might also see sodium benzoate, disodium phosphate, sodium caseinate or sodium sulfite. All of these are salts which, presumably, can negatively affect heart health.<\/span><\/p>\n

STAY POSITIVE<\/strong><\/p>\n

But perhaps the most important piece of advice of all is to <\/span>stay positive<\/span><\/a>. There will be times when you fall off the bandwagon. You\u2019ll feel stressed out and have a cigarette. Or you\u2019ll order the biggest steak you can buy. But just because you don\u2019t stick to your regimen, doesn\u2019t mean you have to quit. When you do something that\u2019s not healthy, immediately get back on track. Work as hard as you can towards achieving your healthy lifestyle. And don\u2019t muse about the times when you\u2019ve failed.<\/span><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The truth is that most heart disease is preventable. And that\u2019s the message that the early pioneers wanted to get across. People just didn\u2019t get the disease in places like South Africa and Zimbabwe. And if they did, it was because they were eating a Western diet. Missionary doctors, like Hugh Trowell, went for decades without seeing a single case. And when they did finally find cases of the disease, it was always linked to the Western lifestyle. It wasn\u2019t that heart disease was lower in places that ate a traditional diet. It was that it just didn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":2218,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,35],"tags":[1260,19,1261,20],"class_list":["post-2213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-wellness-2","category-wellness-2","tag-good-heart","tag-health","tag-heart-health","tag-wellness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2213"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2219,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2213\/revisions\/2219"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}