Tips for heart healthiness

Everyone should know the warning signs for a heart attack -- but according to Dr. Isaac Eliaz, effective prevention requires much more than a list of potential symptoms.

"Heart attacks strike quickly and without warning," said Dr. Eliaz -- an author, lecturer, researcher, clinical practitioner, and product formulator. "So as the national discussion turns to preventing heart attacks, the real question isn't whether people can recognize the warning signs, but rather, whether they can recognize if they are at risk in the first place."

According to the American Heart Association, an estimated 81 million American adults -- more than one in three -- have one or more types of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Of these, 38 million are estimated to be less than 60 years of age.

"And those are just the reported cases," Dr. Eliaz said. "What about the people who have CVD and don't know it or haven't been diagnosed by a doctor because they haven't seen a doctor? Our mission should be to help these people recognize they are in high risk categories and get checked out."

According to Dr. Eliaz, high risk factors include:

• Smoking
• Excessive alcohol consumption
• A diet high in saturated fat and cholesterol
• Sedentary lifestyle
• Obesity
• Glucose intolerance
• Diabetes
• High salt intake

"There are a number of lifestyle options that may avert the condition," he added, referencing a free report he wrote about it at http://cardiobalance.org/. "The obvious advice, of course, is to maintain a healthy body weight, moderate consumption of alcohol, exercise, reduce sodium intake, monitor intake of calcium, magnesium and potassium, and reduce stress. But there's more than that."

Dr. Eliaz recommends the following tips for heart healthiness:

• Heart Healthy Diet -- The first and most obvious step is to shed excess weight through exercise and adopting a heart-healthy diet with heavy consumption of antioxidant-rich fresh fruits and vegetables as the best way to reach both of these goals -- but be sure to eat organic as often as possible, as pesticides will only introduce aggravating toxins into your body.
• Supplements -- There are a number of minerals, nutrients and compounds that support cardiovascular health. Some of them include: magnesium, CoQ-10, carnitine, botanicals such as hawthorn and salvia miltiorrhizae, nattokinase, lumbrokinase, botanical formulas, among others.  
• Watch Your Fiber -- Moderate intake of high-fiber whole grains that are low on the glycemic index scale is also important, along with lean protein like chicken, turkey, and fish (as long as you beware of excess mercury content in the fish).
• Antioxidant Snacks -- Other heart-healthy snacks include seeds and nuts, and even small amounts of antioxidant-rich dark chocolate. Drinking green tea and red wine (in moderation) are also excellent ways to protect your heart.
• Good Fats and Bad Fats -- It is more important that you choose "good" fats as opposed to"bad" fats. The saturated and trans fats that you'll find in red meat, butter, and most fast foods are more likely to clog arteries than unsaturated choices like olive oil and fish oil -- the latter of which can actually boost your heart health.

"At the end of the day, we need to understand the things about our lifestyle that contribute to our risk for heart disease," says Dr. Eliaz. "That way, it really won't matter whether we memorized the warning signs of a heart attack, because we may never experience them."