Tips to get a Healthy Heart

A strong heart is a result of healthy lifestyle choices. So, one should aim to be active and stress-free.

Today's fast-paced life and work pressures have escalated our stress levels and taking a toll on one's heart. We must realize that the healing power of the body decreases when under stress, leading to many complications like hypertension and poor immunity. Today, even youngsters are prone to heart ailments.

So, it's really important to stay healthy and manage your stress levels by understanding the risk factors which are usually high cholesterol levels, stressful lifestyle, smoking, and lack of exercise. Below are certain simple steps which can help you in changing your lifestyle to a healthy and happy one:

1) Avoid smoking

Smoking brings down life expectancy by 15-25 years. If you are a smoker, you are twice more likely to get a heart attack than a non-smoker. The moment you stop smoking, the risk of heart attack begins to decrease too.

2) Cut down on salt

Too much salt can cause high blood pressure, which increases the risk of developing coronary heart disease.

3) Watch your diet

Try to have a balanced diet. Eat fresh fruits and vegetables, starch foods such as wholegrain bread and rice.

4) Monitor your alcohol

Too much alcohol can damage the heart muscle, increase blood pressure and also lead to weight gain. Avoid intake of alcohol or at least limit it to one to two units a day, gradually decreasing the consumption.

5) Get active

At least aim for 30 minutes of moderate exercise a day. Keeping yourself fit not only benefits the heart but also improves mental health and well-being.

6) Monitor your BP, blood sugar and cholesterol levels

Routine medical check-ups will ring an alarm, if you need medical help.

7) Manage your waist

Cholesterol deposition in blood vessels begins in the first decade of life. Carrying a lot of extra weight as fat can greatly affect your health. Make small but healthy changes in your diet.

8) Manage your stress level

If you find things are getting on top of you, you may fail to eat properly, smoke and drink too much. This may increase your risk of a heart attack. Practice yoga/meditation. Take a vacation.

9) Check your family history

If a close relative is at risk of developing coronary heart disease from smoking, high BP, high cholesterol, lack of physical activity, obesity and diabetes, then you could be at risk too.

10) Laughter is the best medicine

Laughing and staying happy will work wonders for you. It is an instant way to unleash the pressure and it makes you feel light too.

So follow the simple tips given above and love the heart that makes you love your closed ones!

    

Orange juice a must have with high fat meal

Flavonoids in orange juice neutralize the oxidative and inflammatory stress generated by high-fat, high-carb meals and help prevent blood vessel damage, claims a new study.
Free radicals, or reactive oxygen species, are known to induce inflammation in blood vessel linings and contribute to the risk of heart attack and stroke. In the new study, University at Buffalo endocrinologists say the potent preventative effect of orange juice likely is linked to its heavy load of the flavonoids naringenin and hesperidin, which are major antioxidants.


"Our data show, for the first time to our knowledge, that drinking orange juice with a meal high in fat and carbohydrates prevented the marked increases in reactive oxygen species and other inflammatory agents," says UB's Husam Ghanim, PhD, first author on the study.


"This did not happen when participants drank water or a sugary drink with the meal," he says. "These issues of inflammation following a meal are important because the resultant high glucose and high triglycerides are known to be related to the development of cardiovascular events."


The study involved three groups of 10 normal-weight healthy men and women between the ages of 20 and 40. After an overnight fast, participants ate a 900-calorie breakfast composed of an egg "muffin" sandwich, a sausage "muffin" sandwich and a serving of hash browns. The meal contained 81 grams of carbohydrates, 51 grams of fat and 32 grams protein.
Along with the breakfast, one group drank 300 calories of "not-from-concentrate" orange juice, a second group drank a 300-calorie glucose drink and the third group drank an equal amount of water. All participants were given 15 minutes to finish their food and drink. Blood samples were collected before the meal and at 1, 3 and 5 hours afterwards. There was no significant difference in inflammatory mediators among the groups before the meal.


Analysis of the samples after the meal showed that oxygen free radicals increased an average of 62 percent with water, 63 percent with the glucose and 47 percent with orange juice. There also was an increase in blood components known as toll-like receptors, which play an important role in the development of inflammation, atherosclerosis, obesity, insulin resistance, and injury to cardiac cells than can occur after a blocked vessel is reopened.


Orange juice also prevented a significant increase in SOCS-3, an important mediator of insulin resistance, which contributes to development of type 2 diabetes.
"These data emphasize that a high-fat, high-carbohydrate meal is profoundly and rapidly proinflammatory, and that this process occurs at the cellular and molecular level," says Paresh Dandona, MD, UB distinguished professor of medicine, director of the Diabetes-Endocrinology Center of Western New York at Kaleida Health and senior author on the study.


"In addition, specific proinflammatory genes are activated after the intake of glucose and a high-fat, high-carbohydrate meal, and these changes are observed in mononuclear cells that participate in vascular inflammation and insulin resistance," he says.


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