Lynn Burns / February Newsletter 2009

Heart Health

Because heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, it's important to know what you need to do to prevent heart disease for yourself and your family.

1. Get out and move your body. Physical exercise is crucial for a healthy heart. Our heart is a muscle and we want to make it stronger!

2. Eat your vegetables. Vegetables are loaded with fiber. Build more fiber into your diet. Fiber helps to lower cholesterol levels, and also lowers blood pressure and blood sugar.

3. Don't smoke, and avoid second hand smoke. Tobacco use causes heart damage and 150,000 fatal heart attacks each year. Second hand smoke is considered to be "passive" smoking and causes 35,000 deaths from heart attack in the U.S each year.

4. Go easy on dairy products. Be cautious with fats in your diet, limiting saturated fats from animal sources. Get enough healthy fats such as olive oil, nuts, salmon, etc.

5. Floss your teeth every day. The bacteria that causes the gum disease gingavitis has been linked to diseased arteries in heart attack patients.

6. Touch and be touched. Many scientific studies have shown that people who were touched lovingly every day had significantly fewer heart problems than the control group.

7. Eat seaweeds. Seaweeds have been shown to stabilize blood pressure, regulate levels of triglycerides, phospholipids and cholesterols, dissolve fatty build-ups in the blood vessels, restore cardiac efficiency, prolong the life of the heart muscle, and encourage a steady heart beat.

8. Eat foods rich in beta-carotenes. They can cut your risk of a stroke by 40 percent. Foods rich in beta-carotenes include carrots, cabbage, winter squash, sweet potatoes, dark leafy greens, apricots, and seaweed.

9. Eat garlic. Study after study has confirmed garlic's abilities to lower blood pressure, reduce phospholipids and cholesterol, strengthen heart action, increase immune response, reduce platelet clumping and clotting (thus reducing strokes) and stabilize blood sugar levels. Eat garlic raw or lightly cooked. (Eat parsley or parsley supplement after to help curtail odor.)

10. Avoid restrictive and radical diets. Frequent dieting, fasting, binging and purging imbalance your electrolyte levels, causing weakening of the heart muscle and damage to the heart.

11. Monitor your blood pressure levels frequently. 25% of Americans have hypertension which strains the heart and damages arteries. People with high blood pressure have twice the risk of heart attack. If you do have hypertension, eat less salt and increase your potassium and calcium levels.

12. See your doctor every year. Have yearly physicals so your doctor can check your blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar. An EKG is also a wise idea. QUESTION what FOODS... will help NOT just pharmaceutical drugs!

13. KEEP IT OPEN! :)

The medicinal effects of healthy foods, exercise and lifestyle on your heart are extremely powerful and in your own control!!!