Lower Blood Pressure by Trimming Your Waistline
Waist circumference has a direct relationship to high blood pressure and lipid (cholesterol) levels.
A study published in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine found the greater the Waist-to-Height Ratio the worse the lipid profile and hypertension in adolescents.
This particular study evaluated 4,104 ninth-grade students between the ages of 14 and 15 years-old during the 2009 – 2012 school year. Body mass index was used to classify waist measurements.
The greater the waist-to-height ratio, the greater the risk for poor lipid profiles and high blood pressure compared to those with normal body mass indexes and waist-to-height ratios.
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5 Steps to Achieve a Healthy Heart
You don’t have to begin a drastic diet in order to achieve your heart health goals. Big results can be achieved by improving your daily habits one step at a time.
Here are 5 steps you can implement now for a healthy heart:
Step 1 – Add fruits and vegetables to your daily diet
That’s right, I’m not telling you to eliminate a food, but to add foods. Fruits and vegetables are essential. Add fruit and/or vegetable to every meal or snack to boost your intake of this necessary food group. It’s estimated that our intake of vegetables is usually only 59% of what it should be and fruit only 42%.
Step 2 – Switch processed grains for whole grains
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Reduce Your Heart Attack Risk
Is the deck stacked against you when it comes to genetics and heart disease? If so, I’m right there with you. However, this isn’t a pass to just say “oh well, nothing you can do about it” and proceed to live an unhealthy lifestyle.
Heart disease and heart attacks are for the most part preventable. Deaths due to coronary heart disease have significantly decreased since 1980.
Here are 5 steps you can take right now to beat the odds:
- Know your numbers
Go to the free health screenings to have your cholesterol and blood pressure checked. Discuss with your doctor to determine how often more in depth lab work should be completed. Ignorance is not going to help you.
For cholesterol, the American Heart Association provides the following recommendations:
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C-Reactive Protein Good Heart Attack Predictor
For quite awhile now, I’ve been encouraging you to look at more than just your standard cholesterol panel to assess your risk for heart disease. I’m going to share the findings of an expert panel that supports this need.
In the Journal of Clinical Lipidology a panel of specialists concluded that patients considered at intermediate risk for heart disease be tested for C-reactive protein. It’s likely this applies to a majority of the U.S. population since overweight and obesity is rampant. Family history, diet, exercise, and tobacco use also factor into determining if you are at intermediate risk.
Just evaluating total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, and HDL cholesterol does not work well for predicting heart attack and stroke risk, especially for patients with metabolic syndrome or diabetes. It’s even more difficult to evaluate risk if a patient is using cholesterol lowering statin medications.
C-Reactive Protein
C-Reactive protein is a marker for inflammation and is associated with plaque build up in blood vessel walls. The plaque build up in coronary arteries leads to narrow arteries, which can cause chest pain. If these arteries rupture you are dealing with a heart attack or stroke.
High Dietary Salt Equals High Blood Pressure
Earlier this month (February 2012), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a report showing that nine out of ten adults eat too much salt daily.
This excess salt is not the salt you are adding with the salt shaker. The high salt diet comes from processed foods and restaurant meals.
A diet high in sodium (salt) leads to high blood pressure. This equals an increased risk for developing heart disease and having a stroke.
According to CDC director Dr. Thomas Frieden, heart disease and strokes are responsible for the deaths of more than 800,000 Americans annually and add approximately $273 BILLION dollars to health care costs.
The U.S. Dietary Guidelines recommend salt be limited to no more than 2300 milligrams per day. This recommendation may be even lower (no more than 1500 milligrams per day) depending on your ethnicity, age, and medical history.
The average adult in the U.S. consumes more than 3300 milligrams of salt each day.
10 Foods Contributing the Most Sodium
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Heart Disease: Is constant wifi exposure impacting your heart?
Heart disease is a lifestyle disease. Yes, there are genetic or hereditary factors that play a role, but how you choose to live has a major impact. By lifestyle this makes me automatically think diet choices and activity level, but there are other factors that fall under “lifestyle”.
Some of these factors would include:
Do you smoke?
Do you live under high levels of stress?
Have you ever thought about wifi or cell phone radiation as contributing?
You are probably familiar with the concerns about living too close to high voltage power lines. Power lines emit electromagnetic radiation. Did you know many other things you probably bring into your home emit this same radiation? Microwave ovens, cell phones, wireless routers, game stations, cordless phones, etc.
Granted at lower levels, but still you are living in an environment receiving constant exposure to low dose radiation.
Before I go further, let me clarify that there are researchers on both “sides of the fence” on this issue. Some studies show no connection between the constant low dose radiation exposure and health (many of which are funded by wireless companies) and other studies that show a direct correlation.
In this article I’m not able to share with you everything you need to know to explain why you need to be concerned and the steps you can take, but my goal is to make you aware of this so you can look further and learn more about what you need to do to protect yourself and your family.
