CAUSES AND PREVENTION

Various Underlying Causes

Heat Disease Risk Factor
Causes and risk factors of Heart Disease

Causes of Heart Failure
There are many things that may have contributed to heart failure. Read more about the causes.

My Heart Central
Over the past decades, heart disease rates declined in both men and women as they quit smoking and improved dietary habits.

Smoking

Cigarette Smoking And Cardiovascular Diseases
Cigarettes are the most important preventable cause of premature death in the United State. Most of those deaths are from heart disease, not cancer.

Smoking And Your Heart Health
Reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease. Quitting smoking reduces the risk of repeat heart attacks and death from heart disease by 50 percent or more.

The Effects Of Smoking On Heart
Quitting smoking improves risk factors for heart disease, including lower cholesterol and carbon monoxide.

Physical Fitness

Health And Age
Physical fitness and heart disease in men.

A Healthy Me
How are Heart Diseases and exercise related.

Exercise for a Healthy Heart
A sedentary (inactive) lifestyle is one of the top risk factors for heart disease. Fortunately, it`s a risk factor that you can do something about.

Balanced Diet

Heart Disease And Diet American Heart Association recommends a "balanced diet" and says: "When eaten on a regular basis as part of a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet, soluble fiber has been shown to help lower blood cholesterol."

Diet And Heart Disease
Understand the relation between diet and heart diseases.

BBC – Diet For Healthy Heart
One of the easiest and most enjoyable things you can do for your heart is to start eating a healthier diet.

Diet And Heart Disease
Diet may play an important role in causing or preventing heart disease.

Some risk factors which we cannot do much about are:

The natural aging process: With advancing age, the condition of the arteries undergoes several changes.

Gender: Men are much more likely to have a heart attack than women. Until menopause, women are protected by the hormone estrogen, but later they too develop high chances of heart ailments.

The genetic factor: If your father and grandfather have had heart problems, it is likely that you will be more prone to it at an earlier age than someone whose family has never shown heart problems.

However, the ones over which we definitely have control are -

Smoking and tobacco: The risk of coronary heart disease is directly proportionate to the number of cigarettes smoked daily. Do not think you are immune even if you smoke only four to five cigarettes a day. This increases your risk of a heart attack by over 50 per cent as compared to a non smoker! Tobacco in any form, chewing, inhaling, sniffing, is also a grave heart hazard.

Lack of exercise: A sedentary lifestyle allows the arteries that transfer blood to the heart to get clogged by plaque.

Diabetes: Often caused due to eating a wrong diet for long periods, diabetes predisposes people to high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and triglyceride levels which increase the risk of heart disease.

High cholesterol: The consumption of fatty food must be kept in control as the fat in the foods circulates in the blood, and this can settle in the arteries.

Obesity: Weight, if not maintained in proportion to height of the body, increases the work load on the heart, thereby harming it.

Stress: Stress can cause spasm of the arteries, leading to heart disease.

Surely, we owe it our heart to do what we can to keep it healthy. This is, fortunately, not hard. All we need to do is eat the right food and put on our walking shoes, for, a simple walk.

• Strengthens the heart, and makes it more effective both during work and rest

• Ensures that blood pressure remains in control

• Ensures that blood cholesterol level and diabetes are controlled because of the body's enhanced ability to metabolize glucose

• Helps weight reduction by mobilizing excess fat from the body

• Indirectly encourages people to quit smoking for maintaining proper health and fitness

• Improves flexibility and builds muscles

• Decreases LDL cholesterol (bad cholesterol)

• Increases HDL cholesterol (good cholesterol)

• Increases energy store in the body

• Increases energy store in the body

• Increases tolerance to anxiety, stress and depression