-We Smoke, Take bad drugs, Consume alcohol
The risk of dying of a heart attack is four times higher in people who smoke than in those who don’t smoke. Many of us are under the impression that the major danger from smoking is cancer but that’s not quite true; smoking is the major risk factor for heart disease, stroke, and cardiovascular disease. In fact, about 40 percent of deaths caused by cardiovascular disease are due to smoking. Bad drugs can cause cardiac arrest, heart attacks, and alcohol causes permanent brain cell damages . Avoid alcohol consumption. 5 to 7 percent of the hypertension we see in people is due to high alcohol intake. The World Health Organization estimates that almost 2/3 of strokes and 50 percent of heart attacks are caused by high blood pressure.
-We Don’t Walk enough
Over the past 50 years, health professionals have examined the association between physical activity and the risk for heart disease. The findings consistently reveal that people who are physically active have half the risk for heart attacks than people who are not active. Those studies show also that at least 30 minutes of moderate physical activity, such as brisk walking, on most days of the week, is sufficient to reduce the risk of heart attack
-We Eat Too Much Saturated Fat
There’s a reason why health authorities advise us to limit the consumption of saturated fat:
Saturated fat is the most rigid of all fats and is solid at room temperature. Solid fats are hard to dissolve and can easily get stuck in your arteries.
When you eat too much saturated fat, your liver keeps producing cholesterol and you end up with much more cholesterol than you need.
Limit saturated fat consumption to less than 10 percent of the total calories ingested per day.
We Ingest Too Many Foods Containing Hydrogenated Oils or Trans Fats
Hydrogenated oils or trans fats as they are usually called, are produced artificially by injecting molecules of hydrogen in vegetable oils, a process called hydrogenation. Through this process, the oil, which is liquid at room temperature, changes its original form and becomes solid. In other words, it becomes saturated fat. In addition, the unnatural shapes of trans fats cause our cells to become malformed and to malfunction. And that includes the cells of the heart and the arteries. Read the food label and avoid products which contain trans fats or hydrogenated fats.
-We Don’t Eat Enough Fruits and Vegetables
We know that people who consume plant foods regularly have a lower incidence of heart disease than those who don’t include them in their diet.
Fruits and vegetables contain phytochemicals, nonnutritive chemicals found in plant foods that protect their host plants from infections and microbial invasions. However, phytochemicals are also crucial in protecting humans against many diseases, including heart disease.
-We Have Too Much personal Stress and we have not learned how to diffuse it, how to properly handle it, even to walk away from it,
Eighty percent of the population suffers from some kind of symptoms caused by stress which many times end up in illnesses such as high blood pressure—a risk factor for heart attack. One of the reasons why you succumb to disease easily is because tension reduces your body’s capacity to adapt to today’s changing environment.
and there is more..
All though I had a heart attack many years ago, my health had improved after my getting diabetes, and I had concluded it was related to the more stringent diet.. but it turns out also to be the diabetes medication also
The INTERHEART study, funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, shows that the risk of heart attack crosses geographic boundaries and correlates strongly to the so-called Western diet that favors salty snacks and fried foods, and to a lesser extent, meat. The risk, spread over five continents, is 30% higher for those who eat a Western diet, the study shows, than for those who adhere to a “prudent diet,” or one rich in fruits and vegetables. An Oriental diet, which is high in tofu and other soy products, doesn’t seem to lower or raise heart attack risk overall, according to the study. Researchers out of McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, examined dietary trends among more than 16,000 participants in 52 countries who were recruited between 1999 and 2003. One-third of the participants, or 5,761 people, were interviewed after having a single heart attack; the remaining 10,646 had no known heart disease, including angina, and did not suffer from diabetes, hypertension, or high cholesterol. The mean age of participants was between 53 and 57 years old. The study categorized eating patterns as Western, Oriental, and prudent. Participants answered written questions and were interviewed by medical personnel about their consumption of 19 food categories, including leafy greens, pickled foods, dairy products, and desserts. All answers were scored according to dietary risk. The study accounted for other risk factors like smoking, body mass index, age, physical activity, sex, and geographical region in assessing overall heart attack risk. It did not track long-term changes in regional eating habits and their link with health problems. Researchers concluded that the higher the regular intake of fried and salty foods, the higher the risk of heart attack regardless of which region of the world one resides in; prudent dietary habits carried the lowest risk. An Oriental diet seemed to be protective against heart attack in some regions of the world, but was not the best hedge overall, perhaps because of the high salt content of soy and other sauces common in the dining choices. “The objective of this study was to understand the modifiable risk factors of heart attacks at a global level,” says Salim Yusuf, DPhil, the study’s senior author. “This study indicates that the same relationships that are observed in Western countries exist in different regions of the world.” Yusuf is a professor of medicine at McMaster University and is director of the Population Health Research Institute at Hamilton Health Sciences in Ontario, Canada. The study acknowledges that serving sizes and preparation technique (the type of fat used in cooking, for example) could play a role in increasing heart attack risk in participants adhering to a Western diet. http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/news/20081020/western-diet-is-a-global-heart-risk
Oct. 27, 2008 — A review of 40 clinical drug trials failed to produce reliable conclusions about the effects of oral diabetes medicines on cardiovascular health, despite controversy over the drug Avandia. However, researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health did find that metformin seemed to be associated with a decrease in heart disease and heart-related deaths Despite a finding that the drug trials, most of them short-term, were not comprehensive enough to yield the best data, researchers point to metformin as a drug that is “moderately protective” and Avandia as “possibly harmful.” The earlier analysis of the effect of diabetes drugs on cardiovascular health, reported in The New England Journal of Medicine in 2007, showed that Avandia, which works well to reduce blood sugar, was associated with a higher risk of heart attack. However, researchers in that case also acknowledged that their conclusions were limited by a lack of access to original clinical data. http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/news/20081027/do-diabetes-drugs-affect-heart-health
— It may be possible for people with type 2 diabetes to reverse a heart threat without surgery, a new study shows. The study included 358 people with type 2 diabetes who took stress tests to check their heart’s health. The stress tests showed that a fifth of the patients had silent myocardial ischemia. Translation: Those patients had no heart disease symptoms, but their heart muscle didn’t get enough oxygen during the stress test. Heart muscle needs oxygen, which it gets from blood. Blood flow to the heart muscle suffers if the coronary arteries narrow. Ischemia (and possibly a heart attack) can be the result. The patients and their doctors were free to pick any ischemia treatment. None of the patients got surgery, but they tended to start taking at least one of the following medications:
Aspirin
Statin drugs, which lower LDL (“bad”) cholesterol
ACE inhibitors, which lower blood pressure
Three years after their initial stress test, the patients repeated the stress test. The researchers expected that the patients’ ischemia would have worsened. But they were wrong. Of the 71 patients who had ischemia at the study’s start, 56 patients (79%) no longer had ischemia three years later. That finding was “striking and unexpected,” write Yale University’s Frans Wackers, MD, and colleagues. The researchers aren’t sure that the medications reversed ischemia. For instance, the study doesn’t show whether the patients also got serious about their diet and exercise after learning they had silent cardiac ischemia, or which medications helped most. The surprising results deserve further research, Wackers and colleagues conclude.
http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/news/20071026/diabetes-heart-help-without-surgery
Potassium and Your Heart
Potassium is a simple mineral with a crucial job: helping your heart beat. A hundred thousand times a day, potassium helps trigger your heart’s squeeze of blood through your body. If you have high blood pressure, heart failure, or heart rhythm problems, getting enough potassium is especially important. And although potassium and cholesterol aren’t directly related, eating a potassium-rich diet just might lower your cholesterol, too.
Potassium: Abundant and invisible
Potassium exists in abundance in soil and seawater. A healthy amount of potassium is essential to all plant and animal life. A critical electrolyte, potassium allows our muscles to move, our nerves to fire and our kidneys to filter blood. The right balance of potassium literally allows the heart to beat. Most people get plenty of potassium just by eating a normal American diet. The main source of potassium in our food is fruits and vegetables. Dairy products, whole grains, meat, and fish also provide potassium.
Excellent sources of potassium include:
- potatoes
- tomatoes
- avocados
- fresh fruits (bananas, oranges, and strawberries)
- orange juice
- dried fruits (raisins, apricots, prunes, and dates)
- spinach
- beans and peas
Eating a diet rich in fruits and vegetables is the best way to get enough potassium. You’ll also get the other benefits of a high fruits-and-veggies diet. Those include:
- reduction of heart disease risk
- lower cancer risk
- lower risk for obesity
Potassium and your heart
In healthy amounts, potassium is a heart-friendly mineral. Potassium doesn’t treat or prevent heart disease. Numerous studies show, though, that getting enough potassium has heart-healthy benefits in several important ways.
Potassium and high blood pressure
In one major study of people with high blood pressure, taking potassium supplements reduced systolic blood pressure (the top number) by about 8 points. But you don’t have to pop potassium pills to get the heart-healthy benefits. A diet high in fruits and vegetables (good sources of potassium) and fat-free or low-fat dairy foods can help lower systolic blood pressure by more than 10 points in people with hypertension.
Potassium and high cholesterol
A direct link between potassium and cholesterol hasn’t been established. But it’s interesting that many diets proven to lower cholesterol are also high in potassium. If you have abnormal cholesterol levels, you’re at higher than average risk for heart disease. The same goes for anyone with any of the other risk factors for atherosclerosis:
- smoking
- high blood pressure
- age over 55 for men or 65 for women
- lack of exercise
- obesity
Taking potassium isn’t known to reduce the risk of heart attacks. But by making sure you’re taking in enough potassium, you’ll probably end up eating more fruits and vegetables. A healthy diet — high in fruits and veggies and low in saturated fat and cholesterol — can help cholesterol levels and reduce the risk of heart disease
Potassium and abnormal heart rhythms (arrhythmias)
For people with abnormal heart rhythms, potassium may be even more important. Potassium is hiding inside every heartbeat. Each heart muscle needs just the right potassium balance in order to contract in a coordinated fashion.
People who’ve had abnormal heart rhythms — arrhythmias or dysrhythmias — are at risk for an uncoordinated heart rhythm. Some abnormal heart rhythms include:
- atrial fibrillation
- atrial flutter
- ventricular tachycardia
- ventricular fibrillation
- supraventricular tachycardia
- Wolf-Parkinson-White syndrome
People with a history of arrhythmias should see a doctor on a regular basis. A periodic potassium check might be part of your routine doctor’s visits.
Potassium and heart failure
For many people with heart failure (also called congestive heart failure), getting enough potassium is especially important. Some diuretics — water pills — for heart failure can cause you to lose potassium in the urine. Potassium supplements or a potassium-rich diet can put it back. Ask your doctor before starting a potassium supplement on your own because it may not be necessary.
Potassium: How much?
When it comes to potassium, it is possible to have too much of a good thing. Healthy people shouldn’t have any problems from eating a high-potassium diet or taking potassium supplements as directed. But people with kidney problems or certain other conditions such as the following need to be cautious about potassium intake:
- acute renal failure
- chronic kidney disease or dialysis dependence
- use of medications that increase potassium levels, including spironolactone (Aldactone), triamterene, or trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole (Bactrim)
How much potassium should you be eating? The easiest thing to do is to increase the amount of high-potassium fruits and vegetables in your diet. You’ll be getting plenty of potassium — with no calculator required.
If you really feel like counting, the USDA recommends 4,700 milligrams of potassium per day. You can find the potassium content in foods on their package labels or from the USDA Web site: http://www.nal.usda.gov.
http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/potassium-and-your-heart
http://news.google.ca/
Diets worldwide that are rich in fried and salty foods increase heart attack risk, while eating lots of fruit, leafy greens and other vegetables reduces that risk, a groundbreaking study showed.I made a study for years of the reasons many people get heart attacks .. it is often a family disease, meaning related family bad habits.. such as the lack of physical exercise, how one handles the stressful situations, how well you sleep included.. and the type of food eaten and how it is prepared… steamed food is advisable and often thus too.. The quality of sleep is more important than the Quantity too. Heart stress and food digestion are also related, related even to cancer, having heart attacks now as well. Jesus will do his part, heal us after we do our part first. http://groups.msn.com/CanadaToday6/heartattackscancer.msnw
It is also now very undeniable we are all also a by product as well as what we eat.. and even a Potassium deficiency.. causes of which are many.. including a medicinal side effect, and the consumption of salt, soft drinks..
If Mother Nature was to deprive you of potassium completely, hard scientific evidence proves you would be dead in less than three weeks. Some Symptoms of Potassium Deficiency: Bad circulation, bluish tint to skin, Chronic-Fatigue Syndrome, diabetes, earaches, edema, headaches, heart palpitations, hypertension, insomnia, intestinal pain, muscle weakness, oppressive breathing, pain in the eyes, prolapsed uterus, swollen glands, tissue anemia, and water retention. http://www.infoforyourhealth.com/Heart%20Conditions/Congestive%20Heart%20Failure.htm
Risks of heart attack the number one killer of persons can also be directly related to bacteria in gum plaque and not merely to one’s smoking or drinking alcohol habits for a start.. This Bacteria that live in the sub-gingival plaques can increase the risk of heart attack for all people.
A recent Medical study describes the association between heart disease and gum disease to be at least as strong as the linkage of heart disease to cholesterol, body weight, or smoking. In fact, research suggests that gum disease may be a more serious risk factor for heart disease than hypertension, smoking, cholesterol, gender and age. So Good dental hygiene could save your life save you from a heart attack . Science has recently found a direct connection between gum disease and inflammation of the arteries, blood clots, hemorrhages, strokes and heart attacks. Add to this that over half of all American men have some form of gum disease and you have the ingredients for an epidemic. Despite this connection, conventional medicine has completely ignored oral health in their heart recommendations. Reference: American Academy of Periodontology, News release, June 2005 http://www.medindia.net/News/view_news_main.asp?x=3802&t=gn
Healthy Teeth Can Reduce Heart Attack Risk- Healthy teeth could help to reduce the risk of heart attacks and strokes, current studies show.Experts say there is increasing evidence of a link between gum disease and heart disease. Experts say “If you have a healthy mouth you are less likely to get coronary heart disease.” After reviewing all of the studies comparing the two disorders, Dental Journals say that periodontal disease could be as significant a risk factor for heart disease as smoking and a high cholesterol diet. “Evidence is now emerging that dental health, in particular periodontal disease, may also be a significant risk for the development of coronary heart disease,” experts claim. “In general the most important studies are large and the quality of epidemiology has been good. There is probably now enough evidence to suggest that there is a relationship in which we, as dentists, should begin to be interested.” There are studies dating back to 1965, examining the link between the two diseases. In two of the larger studies done is the United States the evidence was striking. The National Health and Nutrition Examination Study in 1993, which included nearly 10,000 people aged 25-74, showed that patients with periodontal disease had a 25 percent increased risk of coronary heart disease compared to people without gum problems. A more recent study that involved 1,147 men found “the incidence of coronary heart disease, fatal coronary heart disease and stroke were all significantly related to the baseline periodontal status,” the study said. Smoking, diabetes and low socio-economic status have been implicated in both coronary heart disease and periodontal disease. Sugar and fluoride intake are also related to tooth decay and gum disease, and could be a contributing factor to heart attacks and strokes. Experts say one of the likely causes for the association between the two diseases is bacteria. “An interaction between specific bacteria in dental plaque (the soft layer of mainly bacteria that forms on the teeth) and platelets (components of blood involved in clotting) has also been suggested as contributing towards the association between periodontal disease and coronary heart disease.” Periodontitis is an infection of the gums which causes a natural defence mechanism in the body. The interaction is localised in the gums but it could also trigger reactions elsewhere in the body. “There is a lot of evidence now saying that chronic infections may be an important trigger for atheroma formation (degenerative changes in the arteries). We must consider periodontal disease as a similar chronic infection,” they say. The link appeared to be most obvious in men aged 40-50 years old but the majority of the analysis concerned men. Coronary heart disease is much more prevalent in males. Although women can also be affected by both diseases, they were generally not included in the studies. The present consensus is that Dentists should continue to emphasise that improving dental health generally — and gum health in particular — helps to maintain natural teeth and may also help to reduce the risk of coronary heart disease. http://dentistcom.wordpress.com/2008/01/10/healthy-teeth-can-reduce-heart-attack-risk/
There have been many other similar collaborating medical studies too.. and why the poor people suffer the most.. it is they cannot afford regular dental cleaning and the costs of dentists.
“Heart attacks linked to nine risk factors: study – Washington, August 31 A large international study led by a Canadian has linked more than 90 per cent of heart attacks to nine easy-to-measure risk factors common to essentially every region and every ethnic group in the world, a media report has said. The study conducted under Salim Yusuf, Director of the Population Health Research Institute at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario (Canada) found that leading risk factors for heart attack were abnormal cholesterol, current smoking, abdominal obesity, depression and stress, high blood pressure and diabetes. According to the study preventive factors were eating fruits and vegetables daily, regular exercise and moderate alcohol consumption. “The risk factors are the same all over the planet,” said Jean-Pierre Bassand, President of the European Society of Cardiology. “Political action is desperately needed” in all countries to devise plans geared towards prevention, he said. The findings, said The Wall Street Journal, add to the evidence of the rising global burden of cardiovascular disease, particularly in developing countries, where it is supplanting infectious diseases as the most important cause of death. -Depression and stress, which were determined from several different questionnaires used in the study of 15,152 patients from 52 countries, accounted for a 2.5-fold risk in a person’s risk of a heart attack. – Regular consumption of fruits and vegetables was associated with a 30 per cent reduction of an individual’s risk of a heart attack while regular exercise lowered risk by 14 per cent.”
Why is the Latinos, Blacks, Natives, poor people subject so much to sickness.. they cannot afford the good food? or also do not know what good food is?
Researchers at Scotland’s University of Dundee administered aspirin, an antioxidant or a placebo to 1,276 adult diabetics with no initial symptoms of heart disease, and monitored their health for eight years. Neither the aspirin nor the antioxidant did any better than the placebo in reducing the incidence of heart attack or stroke.
Studies have shown that among people who have previously suffered a heart attack or stroke, aspirin reduces the risk of subsequent events by 25%. “The key message is to keep taking your aspirin if you’ve had a heart attack or stroke,”
Compared to the general population, diabetics are up to five times more likely to suffer from heart disease, and approximately 80% of people with the condition die from heart attack or stroke. But how much of this is still related to foods, stress, proper exercise, rest..
Did you also know that some medications, for even colds, flu, diabetes, etc., can even increase your risk to a heart attack too?
The study, called INTERHEART, looked at 16,000 heart attack patients and controls between 1999 and 2003 in countries on every continent, marking a shift from previous studies which have focussed on the developed world…
The researchers found that people who eat a diet high in fried foods, salty snacks, eggs and meat — the “Western Diet” — had a 35 percent greater risk of having a heart attack than people who consumed little or no fried foods or meat, regardless of where they live.
Most people also do not even know how to eat proper foods, even professionals included.. thus next a lot of people do have related health problems..
for more see
http://12diabetes.tripod.com/
http://12diabetes.tripod.com/info.htm
http://pkbulow.tripod.com/HealthII.htm
Now we should already all should know that unresolved stress, smoking, alcohol, bad drugs, inadequate physical exercises, lack of proper sleep, bad teeth, over weight, and poor eating habits do cause heart attacks that kill people..
http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/publichealthpriorities.html
http://www.tobaccofreeutah.org/finalpressrelease.doc
