1 in every 3 deaths in the US is due to cardiovascular problems and 1.5 million people will have either a heart attack or a stroke this year. Scare tactics, I feel, are never the best way to get people to change their health- but when it comes to our hearts, there needs to be a major shift in this country. Immediately. Between our diets and lack of exercise, as Americans, we are facing a serious health crisis and things have to change.
According to Healthline, an unhealthy lifestyle caused by: living a sedentary lifestyle and not getting enough physical exercise, eating an unhealthy diet that’s high in fat proteins, trans fats, sugary foods, and sodium, smoking, excessive drinking, or staying in a high-stress environment without proper stress management techniques are all risk factors for heart disease.
Let’s break this down a little further so this is more of a manageable list and not an overwhelming “change everything in your life now or death is imminent” sort of situation. Before we proceed, keep in mind that 800,000 people will die every year from Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) so this not a low risk disease and therefor it is crucial to your long-term well-being and quality of life to maintain your heart!
Physical Exercise: As we discussed recently, exercise has a plethora of benefits for your whole body, and hopefully you’ve either discovered something you like at this point or are still getting out there and exploring! But why is it so important for your heart that you stay active? Your heart, just like your quadriceps or triceps, is a muscle, so the more you use it, the stronger it gets. Your heart will beat until the moment you die, so make sure you’re giving yourself the best chance to ward off heart attacks or strokes. To do this, keep your heart in good working order by getting it to really work hard with cardio every single week.
Healthy Diet: Weight gain for one, is very hard on the cardiovascular system. Poor circulation, cholesterol leading to blockages or hardened arteries can all be side-effects of an unhealthy diet and cause your heart unnecessary work.
Smoking: Although smoking is literally terribly for every single system in your body, with the exception of your lungs, it is the hardest on your cardiovascular system. There are thousands of chemicals introduced into your body with every single cigarette. Cigarettes speed up your heart rate, clog and harden your arteries, and reduce your body’s ability to absorb oxygen. According to the FDA, of the 800,000 people that die of cardiovascular disease each year, 20% of those are caused by smoking! That’s 160,000 people that die every year just from smoking related heart problems - that doesn’t even include all of the cancer deaths linked to smoking either.
Excessive Drinking: Let’s take just a moment and look past the benefits of drinking (which we all like to use as a validation for why it’s okay to have just one drink every night) and look at what it is doing to our hearts. When we consume too much alcohol, the effects on the cardiovascular system can be fatal. Mariann R. Piano, Ph.D has done research concluding that “mitochondrial dysfunction and changes in circulation, inflammatory response, oxidative stress, and programmed cell death, as well as anatomical damage to the CV system, especially the heart itself” are all side effects of drinking. Alcohol consumption can also lead to cardiomyopathy, weakening your heart’s ability to pump and circulate blood through your body and can lead to heart failure, as well as high blood pressure.
Stress: For the sake of your dear heart, a major problem many of us need to pay better attention too is our stress levels. Although short term stress can be great for kicking us into gear and making changes, long-term stress does have damaging health effects on everything! Keeping chronic stress levels down will have an overall positive effect to allow all of your organs to work better and keeping your cortisol levels down. Constant stress can make us age faster, sleep less, eat more, or even change things for us on a cellular level! Look at the telomeres (found at termini of chromosomes) which are responsible for cell rejuvenation. In a study done by The Lancet, they found that “Those with shorter telomeres in blood DNA had poorer survival, attributable in part to a 3·18 fold higher mortality rate from heart disease” When your stress levels get too high for too long it will affect the ability for your heart to function properly.
Now the brilliant news is, at this point in time, you are 11 weeks deep into increasing your health and all of these concepts have been introduced at this point! Starting an exercise regime and eating right from today on could significantly lower your chances of a heart attack 10, 20 years down the future. Although that may seem too far away to be relevant, remember back to week 1 when we discussed that your health is not a “one pill cure-all” miracle. And when if all this new information starts to feel frustrating and overwhelming, remember that with the exception of smoking, everything in moderation is fine. A glass of wine with a thick juicy steak today will not lead to a heart attack tomorrow. Forgoing a run tonight will not lead to a weakened heart. However, bypassing all of these for a long amount of time could potentially lead to a bypass. (Pun intended).
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