Did you know heart disease is the leading single cause of death in Australia? It kills one Australian about every 28 minutes!
Almost half of the population are at risk of heart disease, and the numbers are rising. Keeping our heart healthy is the best way to prevent and manage heart disease at any age.
What is heart disease?
Heart disease, also known as cardiovascular disease describes a wide range of conditions that affect our heart. Heart diseases are a number of conditions involving the heart or blood circulation:
- Heart attack
- Heart failure
- Stroke
- Arrhythmia – heart rhythm problems
- Congenital heart defects – heart irregularities that are present at birth
- Coronary artery disease
- Heart infection
Depending on our lifestyle choices, heart disease can threaten our life. However, we can take a step to prevent it.
Are you at risk of heart disease?
There are many risk factors for heart disease including:
- Age – The risk increases as we get older.
- Family history
- Smoking
- Obesity
- High blood pressure
- High blood cholesterol levels
- Poor diet
- Diabetes
- Physical inactivity
- Stress
Many of these risk factors are controllable. If you have risk factors, it’s never too late to make changes. By improving our overall health, we can reduce the chances of developing heart problems.
How to keep our heart healthy
Although, some types of heart disease can’t be prevented, such as heart defects, many heart problems are preventable. Improving our lifestyle is the most important way to keep heart health in order to prevent heart problems.
Here are some tips that can help to keep the heart healthy:
- Regular exercise
- Don’t smoke
- Eat a healthy diet, keep low in salt and saturated fat.
- Maintain a healthy weight
- Reduce and manage stress.
- Control blood pressure and cholesterol (A quick fact: Based on studies, black garlic is remarkably helpful with controlling blood pressure and cholesterol lever to improve our heart health. Check out more click here)
Making all these changes at one time seems difficult. Try to take small steps and keep track of your progress. Heart disease requires a lifetime of treatment and monitoring. So it’s important to take care of our body and improve our overall health now, before it’s too late!
