Is your heart at risk?
Excerpts from David Roberts article
Your heart is a powerful muscle, pumping blood around your body. Blood carries oxygen, which is your body's fuel and keeps every part of your body healthy - including your heart. Your heart gets the oxygen it needs to survive when your blood pumps though the coronary arteries of the heart.
Heart attacks, angina and strokes are all forms of cardiovascular disease (CVD), sometimes called Heart Disease. Heart disease is the 'silent killer' - responsible for 40% of all deaths each year. That means there's a fairly high chance you may be a risk!
CVD is usually the result of two processes - the development over many years of fatty deposits (plaques) in the walls of your arteries, and then a clot forming on one of the plaques.
Fortunately, there are some clues, called 'risk factors', which indicate if you are likely to develop CVD. These include:
- Unhealthy eating patterns
- Lack of physical activity
- Being overweight
- Smoking
- Having high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol or high blood glucose.
Do you have any risk factors?
The great news is that you can change many of the risk factors.
Here's how to eat smart for the heart.
There's no single 'superfood' that will protect against
CVD.
Studies show there are 'heart healthy' foods are eaten in the right
combination they can substantially reduce your risk of CVD. You may
also notice that some of the serves/per day are more than for
general heath - that's because the extra nutrients are needed to
'fight CVD'.
1. Coloured Vegetables and Fruits
Provide our most important sources of vitamins C and provide
other valuable nutrients and dietary fibre. Darker and
brightly coloured varieties provide the most vitamins, minerals and
phytochemicals.
DAILY SERVE = 8 or more
2. Breads and Cereals (esp whole grains)
Contain valuable dietary fibre, protein, B vitamins,
phytochemicals, unsaturated fats, minerals and trace
elements.
A whole grain food is a food with words whole grain, grain,
oats,
oat bran, bran, kibble wheat or rye, barley or seeds near
the
beginning of the ingredient list.
DAILY SERVE = 6 or more (half as whole grain)
3. Fatty fish, Seafood, Legumes, Soy protein
As a group, these foods provide our largest supply of
protein,
and are good sources of minerals, esp iron and zinc, and
B
vitamins. Oily fish are a good source of vital omega-3
fats and
vitamin D.
DAILY SERVE = 1-3
4. Low fat-milk, Soy and Milk products
This food group provides the largest source of calcium,
other
minerals and valuable protein. Most of the fat in milk
products
is saturated fat. This means that full-fat dairy
products are
strictly limited.
DAILY SERVE = 2-3
5. Plant based oils and spreads (excl coconut and palm oils)
Oils, margarines and spreads are fats. These can
be
polyunsaturated, monounsaturated or saturated fats.
Saturated
fats raise blood cholesterol levels. Polyunsaturated
fats
(omega-6) lower blood cholesterols levels. Other
polyunsaturated fats (omega-3) reduce heart and blood
vessel
disease risk.
DAILY SERVE = 3 or more
As well as what we eat, it's how we eat that counts:
- Sit down to eat your meals
- Choosing fruit, vegetables and whole grains as snacks in-between meals will help you avoid high fat, high sugar, occasional foods.
What do you need to eat more of to help your heart?
