Healthy Heart - You Should Know About Heart Disease

Based on World Health Organization (WHO) health report in 1997, heart disease and blood vessel responsible for the deaths worldwide, or approximately 15 million people, some 7.2 million due to coronary heart disease, and 4.6 million people due to stroke , and the remainder from other heart diseases. In developing countries such as Indonesia itself constantly increasing nearly 50% each year.

So far, there is also the assumption that when women exercise diligent enough to avoid this disease. Or by removing a variety of fast food processed foods are also able to drive away this disease. In addition, if you feel young and healthy, how could need to worry about heart disease?
The fact is heart disease kills more women aged 25-44 years old each year than breast cancer. Myth that heart disease only affects men and elderly.

However, you do not worry. The results of research conducted has shown that 82% of the risk of heart disease, can be prevented through lifestyle changes. Well, to find out what can prevent heart disease, what are the most important thing as a step that can be done to reduce the risk of heart disease.

1. Exercise your heart every day.
Overweight or even obesity can increase the risk of heart disease or stroke. Your heart harder to work pumping blood throughout the body if you overweight. Also if you have excess fat around your waist, this belly fat can affect the metabolism, increasing the risk of diabetes, as well as your cholesterol level. Should still maintain good habits and maintain body mass index (BMI) to stay below 25.

In a recent study of more than 27,000 women at Harvard Medical School, researchers found that only one or two hours of physical activity a week can reduce the risk of heart disease by 27%. While exercise two to five hours per week will reduce the risk of heart disease by 32%, while training more than five hours per week can reduce the risk of up to 41%. While changes in body mass index (BMI) of a woman, would only reduce the risk of heart disease by 10%. Sport has a direct effect to reduce inflammation, improve blood vessel function, lowering blood pressure and cholesterol levels, no matter your weight down or not. Try exercising your heart 30 to 60 minutes at least five times a week.

2. Stop smoking right now.
If you have the habit of smoking, the risk of heart disease will increase two to four times greater than those who never smoked. Research also shows that smokers who had a heart attack will be more likely to die (suddenly in one hour). Nicotine is a great deal of pressure on the blood vessels that affects the absorption of oxygen in the body, and also accelerate the emergence of plaque in arteries.

Smoking will also lowering HDL (high density lipoprotein) or commonly known as good cholesterol, increase levels of LDL (low density lipoprotein) or bad cholesterol as well make the blood cells become more sticky and increases the risk of clotting.
Fortunately, not too late to stop this bad habit. A study at Kurume University School of Medicine in Japan, found that smokers who stopped smoking a year, can quickly improve the function of red blood cells.

3. Stress makes your heart work harder.
Stress is a part of life that can not be avoided. Stress can affect your mood and even your attitude when dealing with others. Stress will cause some physical changes in the body that can unwittingly trigger coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, chest pain, and heart rhythm irregularities, stress will interfere with the body's immune system, so you will be more susceptible to disease.
Also stress will increase inflammation in the body, releasing chemicals that damage the blood vessels, and will flood your body with stress hormones, like cortisol. The existence of this cortisol will increase pressure vessels and bad for the way the body metabolizes blood sugar (glucose).

Stress also causes your heart will beat faster and your breathing becomes shorter. This will increase the production of stress hormones and it will make you more anxious. In fact, inhaled a deep breath to trigger the release of chemicals that make you more relaxed. Finally, the presence of stress can start bad habits, like smoking or turn to food as a stress release. Learn how to cope with stress will alleviate this adverse effect.

4. What happens when you sleep, will affect your heart health.
If you think you sleep so soundly that it's hard to wake, what is that right? More than 18 million adults in the United States suffer from sleep apnea, a disease that could threaten the soul marked by cessation of breath that sometimes occur hundreds of times per night without you knowing it. Only 10 percent of these people are aware if they suffer from this disorder. These diseases can increase the risk of high blood pressure, heart attacks and strokes, because it will put pressure on the heart when you try to breathe. This situation also creates a stress reaction will keep the adrenaline flow can damage the heart over time.

5. Siblings can be a mirror of your health.
If you have a parent or grandparent with heart disease is the biggest risk factor for heart disease itself. But you may not realize when your brother or sister, one of them are suffering from heart disease it is a more accurate predictor. Several studies say that, regardless of lifestyle factors or age, your risk of coronary heart disease will increase significantly if you have siblings who have experienced it. Also, the younger brother you are diagnosed with this disease, the higher your risk.

And if the youngest sibling has been diagnosed with heart disease, the chances become greater you will experience it. Therefore recommend that your family members, especially brothers or sisters, to conduct regular health checks, to check their cholesterol and blood pressure. In addition, also check if they have diabetes. Diabetes is one of the triggers of heart disease because of increased blood sugar levels will accelerate the emergence of blood vessel plaques.

6. Two major risk factors for heart disease show no symptoms.
Blood pressure and cholesterol levels is an important factor to measure your risk for heart disease, heart attack and stroke. High blood pressure makes your heart work harder than in normal circumstances, whereas high cholesterol levels can trigger the formation of plaque inside blood vessels.

The important thing is whether you have one or two risk factors for heart disease, it is important to take general health check once a year. For total cholesterol number should be below 200 milligrams perdesiliter (mg / dL), with LDL less than 100 mg / dL, HDL at 50 mg / dL or higher, and triglycerides less than 150 mg / dL. Do not forget to make sure your blood pressure reads 120/80 or lower.

7. Free from trans fats.
Studies conducted at the Harvard School of Public Health shows the result that someone who ate the most trans fats increase the risk of heart disease compared to one-third times that consumed the least. After eating many foods that contain high saturated oil, your blood vessels will be more difficult to expand and increase blood flow, while cholesterol 'good' to be not very effective in giving substance that can cause plaque from blood vessels.

To maintain healthy cholesterol levels, you get less than 10% of daily calories from saturated fat (about 20 grams or 180 calories per day with a standard 2000-calorie diet). Changing consumption of full cream dairy products to low fat, avoid foods that are also made with tropical oils, and limit your daily consumption of red meat to less than 100 grams.