Heart Health Tips: Reducing Cardiovascular Disease

by Dr. Grace Downs

What is cardiovascular disease?

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a category of diseases that affect the heart and blood vessels. Examples of cardiovascular disease include: high cholesterol, high blood pressure, heart attack, and stroke.

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death and disability worldwide according to the World Health Organization. So, it is something that many people are affected by.

There are many different risk factors for developing cardiovascular disease. Some can be changed like diet and lifestyle and others that cannot be changed like genetics. Below is a list of risk factors for developing cardiovascular disease and ways to reduce your risk.

Ways to reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease:

Nutrition:

  • The Mediterranean diet (Estruch et al., 2018) or the DASH diet (Chiavaroli et al., 2019) are both diets based in a lot of research that help to focus eating habits on consuming heart healthy foods. They prioritize two things:

  1. Focus on a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts and seeds, fish, and whole grains. These foods are high in fiber, antioxidants, and omega 3 fatty acids. These work together to regulate cholesterol and decrease inflammation.

  2. Limit sodium intake which helps to support healthy blood pressure.

Movement:

  • Research shows us that getting 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise weekly or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity exercise weekly is the sweet spot for heart healthy exercise. This can help to increase our good anti-inflammatory HDL cholesterol, reduce blood pressure, decrease inflammation, and improve overall heart and blood vessel health.

  • Examples of moderate intensity activities are brisk walking for at least 3 miles, bicycling (<10 miles), water aerobics, tennis (doubles), ballroom dancing, and general gardening.

  • Examples of vigorous intensity activities are uphill walking, bicycling for more than 10 miles, running or jogging, tennis (single), aerobic dancing, and heavy gardening (digging/hoeing). (Eijsvogels et al., 2016)

Tobacco use:

  • Stopping the use of tobacco products has profound effects on lowering risk of developing cardiovascular disease as well as improving cardiovascular disease if it is already present. (Roy et al., 2017). Stopping can be difficult, so seeking support can be an important step in being able to quit.

Monitoring blood pressure and cholesterol:

  • It is important to routinely monitor your blood pressure and cholesterol. If you have high blood pressure and/or high cholesterol, being treated for both of these helps to reduce risk of them progressing and leading to worse outcomes like stroke or heart attack.

Sleep:

  • Not getting enough restful sleep can lead to cardiovascular disease, so making sure to get adequate amounts of restful sleep is important in protecting heart heath and overall wellbeing. (Hoevenaar-Blom et al., 2011)

Stress:

  • Stress affects every system in the body including your heart and blood vessels. One way that it does this is by increasing our blood pressure because of an increase in our stress hormone, cortisol. Finding tools to help manage stress is important for many reasons including protecting heart health.

These are all foundational in preventing and treating cardiovascular disease. There are additional tools like labs and imaging that doctors can use to learn about someone’s heart health.

If you need additional support or have questions about preventing or treating cardiovascular disease, you can schedule with myself or one of the other providers at our clinic!

See you in clinic,

Dr. Grace Downs

Resources:

Chiavaroli, L., Viguiliouk, E., Nishi, S., Blanco Mejia, S., Rahelić, D., Kahleová, H., Salas-Salvadó, J., Kendall, C., & Sievenpiper, J. (2019). Dash dietary pattern and cardiometabolic outcomes: An Umbrella Review of systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Nutrients, 11(2), 338. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu11020338

Eijsvogels, T. M. H., Molossi, S., Lee, D., Emery, M. S., & Thompson, P. D. (2016). Exercise at the extremes. Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 67(3), 316–329. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jacc.2015.11.034

Estruch, R., Ros, E., Salas-Salvadó, J., Covas, M.-I., Corella, D., Arós, F., Gómez-Gracia, E., Ruiz-Gutiérrez, V., Fiol, M., Lapetra, J., Lamuela-Raventos, R. M., Serra-Majem, L., Pintó, X., Basora, J., Muñoz, M. A., Sorlí, J. V., Martínez, J. A., Fitó, M., Gea, A., … Martínez-González, M. A. (2018). Primary prevention of cardiovascular disease with a Mediterranean diet supplemented with extra-virgin olive oil or nuts. New England Journal of Medicine, 378(25). https://doi.org/10.1056/nejmoa1800389

Hoevenaar-Blom, M. P., Spijkerman, A. M. W., Kromhout, D., van den Berg, J. F., & Verschuren, W. M. M. (2011). Sleep duration and sleep quality in relation to 12-year cardiovascular disease incidence: The morgen study. Sleep, 34(11), 1487–1492. https://doi.org/10.5665/sleep.1382

Roy, A., Rawal, I., Jabbour, S., & Prabhakaran, D. (2017). Tobacco and cardiovascular disease: A summary of evidence. Disease Control Priorities, Third Edition (Volume 5): Cardiovascular, Respiratory, and Related Disorders, 57–77. https://doi.org/10.1596/978-1-4648-0518-9_ch4

World Health Organization. (n.d.). Cardiovascular diseases. World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/health-topics/cardiovascular-diseases#tab=tab_1

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