YOU’RE a man, and you’re getting older. When it comes to heart health, this is a serious combination. Increased age and being male are two of the leading risk factors for heart disease. They are among the characteristics along with smoking, excess weight and others that can increase your chances of developing problems. Simply by virtue of your gender and your age, you run a greater chance of developing heart disease than either a woman or a younger man.
Heart disease is something we can all do without. In its minor form, angina, heart disease can knock the youthfulness out of a man by winding him and giving him chest pains after every exertion. At its worst, heart disease kills and is the number one killer of men. That may sound grim. But there’s no need to resign yourself to a life of worry. True, you can’t change your age, your sex or any inherited tendency toward heart disease. But that doesn’t mean there are no other influences you can alter. In fact, there is a lot you can do to keep heart disease at bay.
Committing to change
Heart disease doesn’t happen overnight. Most heart disease results from a narrowing of the coronary arteries, known as atherosclerosis over decades. What makes arteries narrow? Largely, it’s the way we live our lives. In some other countries, where lifestyles are simpler, arteries are healthy and wide open, even in the elderly. Progression of heart disease can be slowed, and in some cases reversed without drugs or surgery. “Moderate changes go a long way,” says Richard Helfant, M.D., director of the Cardiology Training Program at the University of California Irvine, Medical Center. There are some strategies that can keep your heart pulsating and pounding as though it inherited an extra decade or two of life.
Say goodbye to cigarettes. Maybe you’ve smoked for years and even tried to quit with no luck. But a lot of ex-smokers successfully stopped only after their second, third or even sixth attempts. So don’t give up. When you smoke your blood vessels constrict. That places extra strain on your heart. But that isn’t all. Cigarette smoke also forces your heart to beat more rapidly and raises your blood pressure. According to the American Heart Association, cigarettes directly causes nearly one-fifth of all deaths from heart disease.
Cut your cholesterol. Everyone needs at least some of this substance in his body for essential body functions to take place. But the truth is that your own liver produces all the cholesterol your body requires. So if your diet leans too heavily on high-fat, high-cholesterol foods, your total blood cholesterol readings are likely to go up. By making some leaner food choices, however, you can get yourself on a heart-healthy track and perhaps even reversing atherosclerosis. But don’t think that to prevent heart disease you need to adopt a deprivation diet that’s just a step above a hunger strike. No one ever got a heart attack from a steak or a piece of pie. We’re talking about an overall change in lifestyle and not worrying about an occasional slip.
The trick is to limit fat intake to no more than 25 percent of calories over the long term.
Tip the triglyceride scale. You and your doctor should keep tabs on your triglycerides. They are a type of fat in the bloodstream, and though they appear to play a role in heart disease, their exact role in that process is still not as clear as the link between cholesterol and heart problems. What’s one of the best ways to temper your triglycerides? Regular exercise is the best. Sweat a little. It’s tempting to toss out the jogging shoes and spend every weekend planted in front of the television, with your activity limited to punching the buttons on the remote control. If that’s your idea, you’re not alone but you are paying a price. Exercise can do more than just get you some fresh air and make you feel more invigorated. It strengthens the heart muscle. With regular exercise, the heart becomes a more efficient pump. As a result, the heart rate becomes slower for a given amount of effort. Each beat is more efficient and so the heart doesn’t need to work as hard as it would if you were out of shape. Even moderate amounts of exercise are better than none.
Trim your gut. Whether or not you consider flab to be unattractive, it’s clearly hazardous to you health. If you’re obese, the heart has to work harder to move nutrients to the additional cells in your body. That extra strain on the heart can be particularly worrisome if you already have other risk factors that can contribute to heart disease, such as high cholesterol or high blood pressure. Being overweight also adds to the likelihood that you will have high cholesterol and high blood pressure. Set some goals for shedding that stockiness by relying more on low-fat foods and getting more exercise.
Get your vitamins. For decades, mainstream doctors have considered vitamin supplements just a small step away from quackery. But not anymore. It’s hard not to be impressed with a study involving nearly 40,000 men, conducted by researchers at the Harvard University School of Public Health in Boston, that concluded that men who took vitamin E supplements of at least 100 IU per day for two years had a 37 percent reduced risk of heart attack or advanced heart disease. What’s the secret of vitamin E? The vitamin is antioxidant that protects cells from malicious molecules called free radicals that trigger a process called oxidation, which can contribute to the clogging of arteries.
Deflate your blood pressure. High blood pressure is called the silent killer, quietly doing sinister work that puts so much extra strain on the heart and arteries that it can ultimately provoke a hear attack not to mention a stroke or kidney failure. But by pulling the plug on your high blood pressure which you can do by reducing sodium in your diet, losing weight, exercising and (if necessary) taking one of many available medications prescribed by doctors, you can give your heart a breather.
The good thing about heart disease is that it most often gives you warning signs before striking hard. The most common warning sign is angina, chest pain caused by inadequate blood flow to the heart.
