November 3, 2024
Tips to maintain a healthy heart

WASHINGTON (DC News Now) — February is American Heart Month. Heart disease continues to be our greatest health threat and is the number-one killer of Americans, according to the American Heart Association.

The nonprofit said in most cases, heart disease is preventable when people adopt a healthy lifestyle, which includes not smoking, maintaining a healthy weight, controlling blood sugar and cholesterol, treating high blood pressure, getting at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity a week and getting regular checkups.

“Movement is so very important for the heart. And when we say that, we mean in some kind of movement, some kind of activity, if you can, that gets your heart rate up and keeps it up for about 20 or 30 minutes. Current evidence shows that if you’re able to do that five days a week, you impact your heart health in a very positive way. Blood pressure can go down, your blood cholesterol can go down, your blood sugar can go down. All those things moving in the right direction. For most people, that’s going to be the best thing is going to be a brisk walk. So a brisk 30 minute walk everyday can do wonders for your heart health. So that’s one of the easy things that many of us can do,” said Dr. Quinn Capers, professor and chair at the Department of Medicine at Howard University College of Medicine.

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Heart disease is the number-one killer of women, causing 1 in 3 deaths. According to the American Heart Association, among females 20 years and older, nearly 45% are living with some form of cardiovascular disease and fewer than 50% of women entering pregnancy in the United States have good heart health.

According to Dr. Capers, mental health conditions, such as anxiety and depression, can increase the risk of heart disease.

“We know that, for instance, people who suffer from depression and when I say that, I don’t mean just feeling sad and blue because something bad happened, we all kind of go through our ups and downs. But what is called medically major depression, people who suffer from major depression, tend to have a higher risk of heart complications. And if they have a heart attack, they have worse outcomes than people who don’t suffer from depression. People who have certain types of anxiety where a lot of things will make them feel more tense, more stressed, more anxious, more nervous, tend to have worse heart outcomes as well. And we’re learning that there’s an epidemic in this country right now of loneliness, of people being isolated from others. And that loneliness can actually be a risk factor for having heart problems,” he said.

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