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WHAT'S NEW
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Heart health Q+A -- risk factors, heart attack symptoms and more
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Get answers from a straight-talking family physician.
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By Dr. Patricia Mark
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What can I do to keep my heart healthy?
Maintaining heart health means learning if you have a family history of heart disease and lowering heart disease risk factors: smoking, excessive weight, lack of fitness, high blood pressure and diabetes. It's a pretty daunting list. Let's find out how these factors are interrelated and which ones are manageable.
Family history. Many families have elevated cholesterol levels thanks to genes that bump up the production of cholesterol in the liver to above normal. But many women with a strong family history of heart disease discover that it may be related to their parents' poor health habits. Were they smokers? What about their weight and physical fitness? Did they drink a lot of alcohol? Did they eat high-fat, low-fibre foods? If the answers are yes, these are risk factors their daughters can choose to avoid.
Smoking. If they smoke, they can quit. Smoking is invariably linked to heart disease, but the good news is that quitting can result in diminished heart (and lung) disease risk, depending on how many cigarettes were smoked over how many years.
Excessive weight, inactivity and high blood pressure. Women who are overweight increase their risk of heart disease when they consume more daily calories than are burnt up by exercise. In North America, far too many of these calories come from fatty foods, which eventually clog arteries. Furthermore, it follows that most overweight people are inactive and unfit; so are their heart muscles, which can be stressed by the demands of sudden activity, such as going upstairs. Elevated blood pressure (hypertension) is frequently associated with obesity and lack of exercise, although some people, no matter how lean and fit, still suffer from hypertension and need drug treatment to maintain a safe level.
Diabetes. Why is diabetes a concern for heart health? Unless blood sugars are meticulously controlled, diabetes is inevitably associated with heart and blood vessel disease. Blood glucose reacts with proteins to trap cholesterol, which is deposited in blood vessel walls, leading to atherosclerosis and narrow arteries, which in turn diminishes blood flow. Reduced blood flow to the brain leads to strokes, and the narrowing of coronary arteries can cause heart attacks as well as gangrene in the legs, for which amputation is the only treatment. Management of diabetes means preventing heart and blood vessel disease. It's that simple.
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