Heart month may be drawing to a close, but it’s a time to reflect on the sobering fact that heart disease remains the number one killer of both women and men in the United States. The good news is you have the power to protect and improve your heart health.
Phelps Memorial Health Center wants to remind you that you can lower your risk for heart disease simply by adopting sensible health habits.
To protect your heart, the first step is to learn your own personal risk factors for heart disease. Certain risk factors—like getting older or having a family history of heart disease—can’t be changed. But you do have control over some very important risk factors such as high blood cholesterol, high blood pressure, smoking, excess weight, diabetes and physical inactivity.
To improve your heart risk factors, it helps to know your numbers. Ask your health care provider to measure your blood cholesterol and blood pressure. Then determine if your weight is in the healthy range.
The higher your cholesterol level, the greater your risk for heart disease or heart attack. High blood cholesterol itself doesn’t cause symptoms, so you can’t know if your cholesterol is too high unless you have it tested. Routine blood tests can show your overall cholesterol level and separate levels of LDL (“bad”) cholesterol, HDL (“good”) cholesterol and triglycerides. All of these blood measurements are linked to your heart health.
High blood pressure (hypertension) is another major risk factor for heart disease, as well as for stroke. High blood pressure is often called the “silent killer” because, like high cholesterol, it usually has no symptoms.
Your weight is another important number to know. To find out if you need to lose weight to reduce your risk of heart disease, you’ll need to calculate your body mass index (BMI, a ratio of weight to height). A BMI between 25 and 29.9 means that you’re overweight, while a BMI of 30 or higher means obesity.
Next, take out a tape measure. A waist measurement of more than 35 inches for women and 40 inches for men raises the risk of heart disease and other serious health conditions. Fortunately, even a small weight loss (between 5% and 10% of your current weight) can help lower your risk.
Finally, don’t forget that you can influence your loved ones’ heart health by setting an example. Do you have children, grandchildren or other young people who look up to you? If you follow a heart-healthy lifestyle, it’s more likely that they will, too. Because heart disease begins in childhood, one of the best things you can do for those you love is to help children build strong bodies and healthy habits.
Just remember, it’s never too late or too early to take steps to protect your heart. Start today to keep your heart strong. Talk to your medical provider about your risk and make an action plan to improve those risks. Love your heart.
