"Health Articles"

Heart attack. The words alone can send a chill down even the strongest man’s spine, and with good reason. Heart disease is one of the leading causes of death for Americans. Men have a greater risk of heart attack at a younger age than women. But the risk increases for women as they near menopause and, eventually, surpasses that of men. If the nicest thing we can say about someone is that he has a good heart, the most important thing we can say is that he has a healthy heart. You probably can decrease your risk of heart attack by changing your lifestyle in the following areas:

1. Keep tabs on your cholesterol levels

To control your cholesterol, avoid saturated fat, eat fewer calories, and try to eat foods rich in fiber, such as vegetables and fruits. If your cholesterol is very high, drugs to lower it may be an option for you.

2. Ask your doctor about aspirin

Daily intake of aspirin may reduce your risk of heart attack by thinning your blood and preventing clots from forming. However, you should talk with your doctor before doing so because aspirin is not safe for everyone.

3. Drink moderately

Studies show that one drink a day (12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine, or 1.5 ounces of liquor) may have a protective effect on your heart. However, the effects are more beneficial if you are middle-aged or older and have suffered a heart attack or stroke or already have cardiovascular disease.

4. Exercise

Regular exercise is good for you because it helps reduce stress, cholesterol levels, high blood pressure, and excess weight, and it can make your heart stronger, leading to a lower pulse rate. But overdoing exercise isn’t a good thing, especially weight-lifting exercises that can trigger heart attacks. Talk with your doctor before beginning an exercise program.

5. Relax

Because stress is such a factor in heart disease, eliminating or decreasing it can do wonders for your cardiovascular health.

6. Control your blood pressure

Your heart has to work harder to push blood through your body when your blood pressure is high. This causes your heart to enlarge and can speed up atherosclerosis. Fortunately, by reducing your diastolic blood pressure by only 2mm Hg (millimeters per mercury), you can decrease your risk for cardiovascular disease and stroke. The average healthy blood pressure is 120/80 mm Hg.

7. Stop smoking

Smoking is harmful to your cardiovascular health. Smoking also clogs your arteries and in the process, raises the blood pressure in those clogged arteries. This condition helps to double the heart attack risk for smokers compared with non-smokers. Therefore, as soon as you stop, your body immediately starts to bounce back and improve your cardiovascular health.

As most of us may have read about, cholesterol is the fatty, wax like substance present in our cells and blood steam. Cholesterol has an important part in our body. This is because it produces cell membrane and contributes to a number of hormones as well. However, cholesterol can be dangerous to us if it is present in large amounts in our body.

The Two Types of Cholesterol

There are two types of cholesterol, one is the good cholesterol known as HDL or high density cholesterol and the other is the bad cholesterol known as LDL or low density cholesterol. The good cholesterol HDL, should be in levels of minimum 40md/dL or more and the bad cholesterol should be less than 200mg/dL.

The bad cholesterol is the cholesterol responsible for causing dieses including clogged arteries and can provoke a coronary heart disease.

What Causes High Cholesterol In Your Body?

High cholesterol level in your body is primarily due to the food products you consume which contain trans fat, saturated fats and cholesterol. This is the major cause of raising cholesterol levels in the blood stream. However, there is more than one cause of high cholesterol. Besides the foods you consume, excess weight, genes, gender and age all can cause high cholesterol levels.

Obesity is one of the major cause of high cholesterol as it occurs when the body mass is mostly made up of fat. Fat in turn, contain cholesterol. That is why, it is important to keep an ideal weight at all times.

Family’s health history transmitted through the genes is also a cause of high cholesterol levels. So, if anyone in your family has suffered from high cholesterol, you may have a tendency to suffer from it too. High cholesterol caused by heredity can be controlled with medication under a doctor’s supervision.

Men are found to be more prone to high levels of cholesterol in their teens while women become more prone to high cholesterol after menopause. Both men and women can control their cholesterol levels and maintain a normal level of cholesterol with proper health care and diet and with the right medication.

How To Prevent High Cholesterol

As most of the causes of high cholesterol are our own negligence in our diet and physical activities, we could easily manage our cholesterol level by modifying our diet and daily activities. We should pay more attention to the food we consume everyday and the amount of exercise we do everyday. This will help prevent and improve the levels of bad cholesterol in our body and maintain it at the right level.

Another factor that causes high cholesterol levels is triglyceride, which is a form of fat. It comes from food and is also made in your body. People with high triglycerides will often have a high total cholesterol level too.

The Importance of Understanding Your Cholesterol Level

It is extremely important to know your cholesterol levels. This is because having untreated high cholesterol can make you very prone to heart attacks and strokes. Although obesity is one of the most obvious causes of high cholesterol, just because you have an ideal weight does not mean that you have the right cholesterol level.

Basically your level of cholesterol can be categorized in one of three categories of cholesterol levels, which are: desirable, borderline risk, or high risk. You are considered as being in the desirable category if your total cholesterol is less than 200mg/dL, and the risk of getting a heart attack is relatively low, unless if you have other risk factors for the condition.

If your cholesterol is between 200 and 239mg/dL, you are considered in the borderline risk category. About a third of all people are in this category. If you are in the borderline category, you should check your cholesterol level at least once a year, especially if your HDL is less than 40mg/dL and/or you don’t have other risk factors for heart disease.

Lastly, if your cholesterol level is at 240mg/dL or more, you are in the high risk category. This means your risk of heart attack and stroke is very high. You will also have twice the risk of other coronary problems. If you are in this category, you must be more careful and start taking steps to improve your condition.

The most important to remember is lower LDL cholesterol, means lower total cholesterol level. Take all of the possible measures to keep your LDL cholesterol as low as possible. If you still are not able to lower your cholesterol, you can ask your doctor to prescribe medications to assist you in this process.

There is new evidence that an extremely common skin condition is associated with an elevated risk for heart attack.

We are talking about psoriasis, which affects about 2 to 3 percent of the adult population.

As if this condition isn’t bad enough–bear in mind, it can be extensive and really affect ones way of life because of the problems with the skin itself.

But now, there’s new evidence it is associated with deadly cardiovascular disease. You know, it’s sometimes referred to as the heartbreak of psoriasis.
And that couldn’t be farther from the truth, in a literal sense.

New research in the latest Journal of the American Medical Association shows that adults with psoriasis, especially younger individuals, are at an increased risk for heart attack.

Dr. Joel Gelfand, the lead researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, says, “Psoriasis is such a complicated disease; most people that develop the disease earlier in life, in their 20s and 30s, it may be that these folks are the ones who may have the highest risk of developing uh heart attacks related to psoriasis if their disease is severe, as opposed to people who develop psoriasis later on in life.”

Understand that psoriasis is a disease of inflammation. And there are inflammatory markers in the blood, like one called c-reactive protein, which are elevated with psoriasis.
The fact is, heart disease is also a condition of inflammation, and c-reactive protein can also be elevated with heart blockages.

So other chronic immune conditions, like rheumatoid arthritis, have already been shown to be associated with higher risks of having a heart attack independent of these major cardiovascular risks factors, instructs Dr. Gelfand.

The authors say the degree of association between severe psoriasis and heart attack in patients younger than 50 is similar to the magnitude of association for other major cardiac risk factors.

The bad news for Ernie Bickford, who is 72 years old, is that he has had a bad case of psoriasis for eight years now. “It’s just itchy, you wake up in the middle of the night and you got to get to a door jam to scratch your back.”

Fortunately, the good news is, because Ernie is older, psoriasis is not a heart attack risk that would be seen in a younger psoriasis patient.

Regardless, all psoriasis patients need to pay close attention to their entire medical care.

Dr. Gelfand says, “People with psoriasis are more likely to have diabetes; they’re more likely to be overweight; they’re more likely to have elevated blood lipids, they’re more likely to be hypertensive, and also they tend to be more likely to smoke. So the patient should ask their dermatologist to screen them for cardiovascular risk factors or if not follow up with a primary doctor or internist who can do these screenings for them.”

One thing for sure you can do: don’t smoke, or if you do, quit.
Smoking has actually been shown to be associated with the onset of psoriasis.

The author says some people have suggested that therefore, its worthwhile encouraging people not to smoke if they have psoriasis because it may actually promote the disease.