Do you know the leading causes of death for men and women in the United States? It is a heart attack that kills more than 1 million people every year. This is usually a consequence of coronary artery disease, which is a heart condition.
According to statistics, 920,000 heart attacks will occur this year alone, and up to 50% of them will occur in unsuspecting Americans without any warning signs.
A heart attack occurs when blood flow to the heart is blocked and the heart does not receive enough blood to do its job properly. Plaque that builds up in an artery often blocks blood flow, which can suddenly rupture and form a clot that restricts blood flow to the heart.
If this situation occurs, you need to respond quickly, otherwise a part of the heart muscle will die and turn into a scar, which can cause more serious problems in the future.
5 lifestyle changes can prevent 80% of heart attacks
Although this life-threatening condition is very serious, many people don’t know that it can be completely prevented or avoided by making lifestyle changes. We already know that our lifestyle is an important factor in our cardiovascular health.
Karolinska Institutet researchers found that just five healthy lifestyle changes can reduce men’s first heart attack by 80%. Here’s what they said:
“It’s no surprise that healthy lifestyle choices lead to a reduction in heart attacks … It’s surprising how dramatically the risk can be reduced by these factors.”
A similar study was conducted by INTERHEART in 2004, which examined risk factors for cardiovascular disease in more than 50 countries and found that 90% of cardiovascular disease can be prevented by making certain changes in diet and lifestyle. life.
What are these important lifestyle changes that play such an important role in cardiovascular health?
Healthy diet
Moderate physical activity (at least 40 minutes of walking/cycling per day and at least 1 hour of exercise per week)
Healthy waist circumference (waist circumference less than 95 cm or 37.4 inches)
Moderate alcohol consumption (maximum 10-30 g per day)
Do not smoke
What is your heart healthy diet?
Contrary to popular belief, the foods that are most harmful to our hearts are not saturated fats like butter, lard, and eggs, but refined sugars, carbohydrates, and processed foods.
People often mistakenly believe that high levels of LDL cholesterol, also known as “bad” cholesterol, lead to cardiovascular disease, and that saturated fat increases blood levels of LDL. Most people don’t know that there are TWO types of LDL cholesterol particles.
Small, dense LDL cholesterol
Large, “fluffy” LDL cholesterol
Research shows that these large fluffy LDL particles are not to blame for heart disease. Small, dense LDL particles can cause plaque to form in the arteries, which can lead to heart attacks. When it comes to food, trans fats increase the levels of small, dense LDL particles, while saturated fats increase levels of large, benign LDL particles. Carbohydrates and refined sugars such as bread, bagels, and sodas increase small LDL particles, so trans fats and carbohydrates are far more damaging to the cardiovascular system than saturated fats alone.
The Real Diet Plan for Heart Health
If you want to maintain cardiovascular health, you need to completely avoid trans fats and processed foods. This means that fast food and junk food are completely excluded from consumption. Then you need to monitor insulin and leptin resistance. A high intake of sugar and grains may have thrown the balance off balance and caused quite a few problems. If you want to reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease and prevent a heart attack, you should follow a few basic rules.
Avoid sugar, processed fructose, and grains. Stay away from most processed foods.
Eat a healthy, balanced diet of whole, organic foods. Carbohydrates are replaced as follows.
Lots of vegetables
Low to moderate quality protein (organically raised pastured animals)
High quality healthy fats (saturated and monounsaturated from animal and tropical oil sources).
It has been scientifically proven that most people are deficient in fat in their daily diet and need to be improved in order to improve their health. Even so
arteries responsible for prostacyclin, which regulates blood flow. Omega-3 deficiency causes a long list of health problems and is a risk factor for more than 96,000 premature deaths each year. Experts recommend limiting your intake of vegetable oils and eating oily wild fish like sardines and anchovies. You may want to consider a high-quality krill oil supplement.
Is fruit good for your heart?
A study presented at this year’s ESC Congress in Barcelona revealed some surprising findings. Studies have shown that people who eat fruit regularly have a 40% lower risk of developing any type of cardiovascular disease and a 32% lower risk of dying from any cause.
Berries are rich in antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, and other phytonutrients that improve cardiovascular health and prevent inflammation. A study in the British Medical Journal found that eating an apple a day reduced the risk of heart disease and death from a heart attack in people over 50, with the same effect as statins.
However, everything, including fruit, should be in moderation. You should be careful of sweet fruits; They contain a lot of fructose. The healthiest ingredients are usually found in the bitter or sour-tasting skins and seeds. When buying fruits, always choose organic products, they are the most nutritious and you will know that they are not devoid of all nutrients. Remember that fruits are high in fructose and should be consumed sparingly. Depending on your health, there are specific guidelines for how much fruit you should eat per day. For example:
If you are leptin/insulin resistant, overweight, hypersensitive, or have high cholesterol (including nearly 80% of Americans), you should not consume more than 15 grams of fructose per day.
If you don’t have insulin/leptin resistance, are of normal weight, have diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and are active every day, you can eat as much fruit as you want.
If you belong to the second group, fruits increase blood sugar levels and even increase protein glycosylation. Your body will store the sugar in your blood and use it for fuel instead of spiking your blood sugar, so it’s best to eat fruit after exercise or physical activity.
Additionally, if you’re doing endurance exercise, you can eat a lot of fruit because your body burns most of the glucose during training and doesn’t store it as fat.
Diabetes medications can increase the risk of heart disease
People with diabetes are often prescribed metformin, which increases the body’s sensitivity to insulin. However, recent studies have shown that long-term use of this drug can reduce the level of the thyroid-stimulating hormone TSH, causing serious health problems and damage to the cardiovascular system. Another study showed that patients with type 2 diabetes who took antidiabetic drugs had a higher risk of dying from cardiovascular disease.
According to the researchers, “The overall results of this meta-analysis suggest that intensive treatment of hypoglycemia has no benefit on all-cause or cardiovascular mortality. “A 19% increase in all-cause mortality and a 43% increase in cardiovascular morbidity cannot be excluded. .”
If you have type 2 diabetes, you may want to look for other treatment options, and these medications are not your only options. Lifestyle changes include avoiding processed foods and eating more organic foods that are free of artificial sugars and sugar-producing carbohydrates. If you start doing high-intensity cardio along with your diet, you’ll be on the right track to treating this condition.
Beta-blockers and scientific error warnings
Beta-blockers are drugs used to treat high blood pressure and heart failure. They bind to the beta receptors of the neurotransmitters norepinephrine and epinephrine (adrenaline), dilating blood vessels and lowering heart rate and blood pressure. In the past, beta-blockers were commonly used in patients undergoing non-cardiac surgery, although they were recommended by the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). However, this happened recently
d ESC took 2 years to withdraw the beta-blocker recommendation? Who knows how many deaths could have been prevented if he had known immediately.
Even the doctors, who knew this, followed the instructions and could not do anything, so their hands were tied. According to Forbes:
“They write about a culture of neglect where few participants benefit from discovering and reporting scientific misconduct. They cite many examples of misconduct, but the responsible parties—authors, home institutions, journals, and medical societies—have responded modestly and nonaggressively. They paint a portrait of the scientific and medical establishment so as not to rock the boat.”
Avoid becoming another heart attack statistic
If you want to improve your overall health and reduce your risk of heart attack and cardiovascular disease, there are a million things you can do. What you shouldn’t do is wait for the situation to get worse before doing anything about it. If immediate action is not taken, the consequences can be fatal.
If you want to prevent heart attacks and improve your health, you should do the following.
- If you have insulin or leptin resistance, cut out all sugars, including processed fructose and grains.
– Eat unprocessed saturated animal fats, they are very good for you.
Do not take statins, they have many dangerous side effects and little benefit. In fact, these drugs only help people with familial hereditary hypercholesterolemia. People in this group are resistant to lifestyle strategies such as diet and exercise.
- Do not sit for a long time. If possible, limit your sitting time to three hours a day or less and try to be more active.
- Combine regular exercise with a healthy balanced diet, preferably organic. It may even be more effective than cholesterol-lowering drugs. For best results, combine high-intensity interval training, strength training, stretching, and core exercises.
- Spend more time in the sun, sunbathe in the sun, and if you don’t get enough, take vitamin D3 supplements to provide your body with the vitamin D it needs.
- Reduces daily stress. Try Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) to help you deal with stress. Stress is a factor in many diseases, not just cardiovascular disease, so reducing your stress levels can have a positive effect on your overall health.