Take Care of Your Heart
Take Care Of Your Heart
Follow the Yellow Brick Road
Take a right at the corner...Heartbeat Cafe
In the time it takes you to read this story, your heart is pumping about five quarts of blood through more than 60,000 miles of arteries, veins and capillaries—that’s farther than twice around the world.
Depending upon how long you live, your heart could beat three billion times in your life-time!
Your fist is about the size of your heart. In fact, it’s not heart-shaped at all. It’s more like a cone and weighs about 11 ounces. The heart is a muscle sandwiched between two thin protective layers. Inside are four chambers, two on the right and two on the left. Blood from all parts of the body, which is low in oxygen, returns to the right side of the heart to be pumped through the lungs where oxygen is replenished. Then, once again, it is pumped all around the body by the left side of the heart.
Quite simply, your heart’s purpose in life is life support. No heart beat, no life. As the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz said, “If I only had a heart.”
Heart Matters
We asked the doc...What’s The Matter?
We have inquiring minds, and we want to know! We asked leading cardiologist Michael H. Sketch, Sr., M.D., to explain coronary heart disease so that you can understand just exactly what it is and what your risks are of suffering from it. Dr. Sketch also offers advice on what you can do about your risks. His frank discussion looks at the heart of the matter—your heart.
The Heart Of The Matter
Despite a significant decline in recent years, over 40% of North Americans die from dis-eases of the heart and blood vessels —at the rate of nearly a million each year. The most common of these diseases is coronary heart disease, which is responsible for over a million heart attacks and 500,000 deaths each year.
What Is Coronary Heart Disease?
To many people the term disease means a “bug” you caught or an ailment you devel-oped—both are thought to be definitely bad. Generally, doctors use disease to indicate the presence of a condition that impairs part of your body’s function. Therefore, if you or someone you know has heart disease, his or her heart does not function properly.
Exploring Coronary Heart Disease
Now let’s shift our focus to coronary heart disease. But first, in order to understand what is meant by this term, you must know about blood vessels and what they do. All parts of the body require a constant supply of blood to provide them with oxygen and nutrients in order to do their job. The heart is no exception. Blood travels around the body in blood vessels, which are nothing more than tubes. A blood vessel that takes blood to a part of the body is known as an artery. A blood vessel that takes blood away from a part of the body is known as a vein.
The heart receives its blood through blood vessels known as coronary arteries. Without a supply of blood, rich in oxygen and nutrients, the heart cannot do its job—that is, pumping blood around the body. Therefore, if your coronary arteries become seriously narrowed or blocked due to a build-up of cholesterol in their walls, blood flow to your heart will be limited, and your heart will not work properly. You will be suffering coronary heart disease because the blockage in your coronary arteries is causing malfunction of your heart.
Hardening Of The Arteries
You have probably heard about hardening of the arteries. This condition is none other than a build-up of cholesterol in the walls of the arteries. When it seriously affects someone’s coronary arteries, that person suffers coronary heart disease because his or her heart will malfunction.
Cholesterol may be building up right now in your coronary arteries (in fact, it probably is). However, the good news is that you can do something about it. Please refer to the Count on Your Heart section of this brochure to pick up some helpful tips.
Count on Your Heart
Count Your Risk Factors
A risk factor increases the likelihood of your having coronary heart disease—for in-stance, angina pectoris (chest pain) or a heart attack. The more risk factors you have, the more likely you are to suffer coronary heart disease. Insurance companies and health care providers are obviously vitally interested in your risk factors. But no one should be more aware of them than you. Count on these:
- Advanced age
- Male gender
- Family history of heart attacks at a young age
- High blood pressure
- Smoking
- High lipoprotein cholesterol (too much bad cholesterol)
- Low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (not enough good cholesterol)
- A sedentary lifestyle (not enough exercise)
- Diabetes
- Heart enlargement
- The established presence of coronary heart disease
Dealing With Your RISK Factors
Of course, some risk factors you cannot change, such as your age, gender or par-ents—however, if you have risk factors over which you have control, that is all the more reason to change the factors you can change.
With rare exceptions, if you have high blood pressure, you will need to take medicine for the rest of your life so that you will live a longer, healthier life. Don’t stop taking your medicine unless told to by your doctor.
The treatment of high cholesterol is complex. The good news from the federal govern-ment’s National Cholesterol Education Program is that more people are having their cholesterol checked regularly. Nearly one in four people have been told by their doctors that their cholesterol is high. More and more people know what their cholesterol levels should be and how to modify their activities and what they eat to lower their cholesterol level.
Take Action
Though I encourage each and every person to be guided by his or her doctor, in gen-eral, the first approach to lowering your cholesterol is dietary modification and the achievement of the weight your doctor recommends. That’s a lot cheaper than taking medications. However, cholesterol-lowering drugs may be necessary, if diet alone does not satisfactorily reduce your cholesterol. If you already have coronary heart disease, it’s more likely that you’ll need cholesterol-lowering drugs. Research studies have shown that if you reduce your cholesterol, you will reduce your risk for coronary heart disease. Therefore, do what your doctor advises you and continue to do it!
Take The Time To Exercise
Exercise! If you’re over 45 years old, seek medical advice before you start. Don’t run, walk! You’ll feel better, and chances are you will reduce your risk of heart disease. As a society, we are overweight. That’s a fact. When the distance around your waist is greater than the distance around your hips, you are at increased risk of coronary heart disease. Weight loss requires you to reduce the calories you eat and drink and increase the calories you burn through daily exercise and other activities. You don’t need a special diet to reduce your intake of calories. Soda pop between meals adds unneeded calories. That cocktail before dinner can contain 200 or more calories. Look for calorie-reducing options. For instance, a glass of orange juice contains 120 calories but a similar glass of V-8® contains 48 calories. Opt for skinless chicken breast and salad with a light olive oil dressing instead of meat and potatoes or pizza. Don’t wait for your first heart attack to change what you eat. About a third of people die from their first heart attack.
Is there a Doctor in the House?
Heartbreak Hotel: Check Up Or Check Out
I read that taking aspirin every day helps my heart. Is this true?
People who take aspirin regularly after a heart attack reduce their heart and blood vessel problems by 25%. So, if you have been diagnosed as having coronary heart dis-ease or if you have multiple risk factors for coronary heart disease, I recommend you take one aspirin every day, unless your doctor says otherwise.
I’ve been told that because I’m a woman, I’m protected from having heart attacks. Is that true?
In general, women vastly underestimate their relative risk of heart disease. They worry more about breast cancer, even though coronary heart disease is the major cause of death in women over the age of 25. It has been thought for many years that being a woman protected one from coronary heart disease. However, it is now known that a woman’s chance of dying from a heart attack and in association with coronary artery bypass surgery is 50% higher than in men. Further, though increasing age is a risk factor for both men and women, in women, there is about 10 years’ delay in the appearance of coronary heart disease. That’s why women have wrongly assumed their risk of suffering the disease is not as high as in men.
Does estrogen lower the risk of coronary heart disease in women?
Studies have shown that the taking of estrogen by postmenopausal women is associated with a reduction in their risk of suffering coronary heart disease. However, any decision to take estrogen after menopause has to take into account the increased risk of some kinds of cancers that are associated with these drugs. Discuss your options with your doctor.
My father is 75 years old and has never had a heart attack. Is it important for him to be on a low-cholesterol diet?
It appears that lowering cholesterol up to age 70 is helpful. Beyond age 70, there is no available information to guide us. Personally, for many reasons, I believe that the elderly should eat what they like and enjoy life to the fullest degree that their finances and aging bodies will permit.
Can vitamins help reduce my risk for heart disease?
It has been suggested that antioxidants such as beta-carotene and vitamin E will re-duce the risk of coronary heart disease. But is there any evidence that they are effec-tive? Studies to evaluate beta-carotene have not proven it to be effective. In fact, there is some evidence that its use is associated with an increased risk of lung cancer. On the other hand, vitamin E holds some promise. Two studies have demonstrated that high doses of vitamin E may reduce disease of the heart and blood vessels by as much as 30%. Nevertheless, although vitamin E may lower the risk of suffering coronary heart disease, at this time, there is insufficient evidence to make a firm decision about its use.
For More Information
American Heart Association
www.americanheart.org
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
www.nhlbi.nih.gov
A PUBLICATION OF THE
Wellness Councils of America
9802 Nicholas Street, Suite 315
Omaha, NE 68114-2106
Phone: (402) 827-3590
Fax: (402) 827-3594
www.welcoa.org
©2006 Wellness Councils of America
The information contained in this brochure has been carefully reviewed for accuracy. It is not intended to replace the advice of your physician or health care provider.