Women tend to put the needs of others first. Taking care of oneself gets mistakenly equated with being selfish.

It can’t be emphasized enough that the self-care you give yourself today determines what life looks like 10, 20, or more years down the road. Will you be able to physically do what you want to do?

Let’s say you make through your 40’s with no heart health related issues. Cholesterol levels are good. Blood pressure is within normal. Then your 50’s roll around and next thing you know you’re on medication to either lower cholesterol, lower blood pressure, or both. Some more time goes by and you start experiencing angina, which is chest pain tied to reduced blood flow to the heart likely caused by your high cholesterol levels leading to narrowed arteries. More medication is added to the mix (which we all know comes with it’s own unpleasant side effects) and next thing you know all you want to do is sit on the couch and not move because it hurts too much or you just don’t have the energy. An all too common scenario and even more frustrating because it is largely preventable.

While heart disease is often considered a “man’s disease,” around the same number of women and men die each year of heart disease in the United States. Despite increases in awareness over the past decade, only 54% of women recognize that heart disease is their number 1 killer. One in every four women die of heart disease.

The older you get the higher your risk for heart disease and stroke.

Contributed by Danielle Kunkle.

Heart disease is a catch-all term for many different conditions that affect your heart. The most common, coronary heart disease (CHD) is caused by fatty deposits narrowing the arteries that supply the heart. Other types of heart disease are caused by abnormalities in the heart structures themselves, weakness in the heart muscles, or problems with the signals that maintain a normal heart rhythm.

Heart disease causes one in four deaths in the U.S.; it’s the leading cause of death for both men and women. Over 700,000 people have a heart attack every year, and heart disease contributes to nearly 800,000 strokes each year.

Health and lifestyle factors such as hypertension, obesity, diabetes, high cholesterol, smoking, heavy alcohol use, and a lack of physical exercise are all risk factors for developing heart disease. The Centers for Disease Control states that 47% of Americans have at least one risk factor for heart disease.

If you have heart disease, or risk factors for heart disease, and you are covered by Medicare, here’s what you need to know about your coverage in 2019.

Does Medicare cover heart disease screening?

Undiagnosed and untreated heart disease causes debilitating and life-threatening complications. The good news is that Medicare covers a number of tests and screening procedures to identify heart disease early so you can get the treatment you need.

It is important to realize the impact cholesterol has on our entire system and the role that certain characteristics of okra play in potentially improving our health.

Okra fiber binds to cholesterol

The first important characteristic of okra is that it is a great source of fiber. Just like most fruits and vegetables, okra naturally contains both soluble and insoluble types of fiber. Soluble fiber has been linked to improved levels of LDL (or “bad”) cholesterol by reducing the absorption of cholesterol in the body and aiding in the excretion of excess cholesterol. Also, as okra is cooked it forms a gelatinous substance (also called mucilage) that will physically bind to cholesterol.

Contributed by Ryan Peterson.

Moderation is key when it comes to leading a healthy lifestyle. Now, moderation can be an extremely difficult thing to achieve in any aspect of life. You have to draw boundaries and clear lines in otherwise grey areas and you have to make sure that you don’t become too dependent on any given substance or activity that you consume or engage with. But, for the sake of your overall health and wellbeing, you do need to take active steps to determine what is best for you in terms of helping your body to function as it should without completely denying yourself any pleasures that really make life worth living! So, let’s take a moment to look at a few areas where people find difficulty in striking the right balance between “too much” and “not enough”!

Exercise

We need to exercise in order to keep our bodies in shape. Regular exercise can help us build muscle, build stamina, and lose any excess weight or fat that we might be carrying. But it’s important that you only engage with a healthy amount of exercise that our bodies can handle. It is recommended that the average adult gets one hundred and fifty minutes of moderate aerobic exercise and week or seventy-five minutes of vigorous aerobic exercise a week. If you haven’t exercised in a long time and are planning on getting back into it, make sure to ease yourself into the process. Going from doing nothing to forcing your body to work out for an excessive period of time can cause you serious damage – your heart rate could rise to a dangerous level and this could prove to be fatal. You might also injure yourself if you are not used to carrying out different exercises and throw yourself into the deep end with weights or techniques that are out of your comfort zone. In order to get back into fitness the right way, you could benefit from hiring a personal trainer. This professional will be able to survey your current fitness levels and can ease you into getting into good shape. They can come up with an appropriate programme and slowly build up the amount of time that you exercise for or the weights that you are using.