How to practice your heart health

To all women, odds are you are at risk for heart disease, according to new prevention guidelines released this week by the American Heart Association.

For the first time, the AHA is recommending aspirin therapy for nearly all women - except the young and healthy.

But first talk to your doctor before taking a daily pill, the AHA advised.

The guidelines, published in a special issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, are the result of dozens of studies conducted by many international groups, including the American Academy of Family Physicians and the U.S. government.

Those studies indicate that many more women are at risk for heart disease than previously thought.

The warning extends to women whose only risk factor is the lack of daily exercise.

Add hypertension and obesity, and the risk for stroke or heart attack increases even more.

If you smoke, your risk is even higher.

Now look in the mirror.

What do you see?

More pounds than you should?

Saddlebags and poor muscle tone?

Think back on your family history. Make a list of relatives who had heart disease or strokes.

Be honest with yourself - do you smoke?

Have you tried to quit?

Now the tough part. List everything you have eaten in the past 24 hours.

When was the last time you exercised?

Could you, today, walk out your front door and take a brisk walk for a mile or two, or would you be huffing and puffing by the time you got to the end of your driveway?

When was the last time you talked to your doctor about your risk of heart disease or stroke?

When was the last time you had a physical?

Now consider the following AHA guidelines:

• Exercise: At least 30 minutes of moderately intense exercise on most if not all days, 60 to 90 minutes if you need to lose weight.

• Diet: Fruits and vegetables, whole grains and high fiber foods with a serving of fish at least twice a week. Skip the salt. Limit saturated fats to less than 10 percent of calories, 7 percent if possible; trans fats to less than 1 percent. Alcohol, no more than one drink daily.

• Don't smoke, period.

• Weight: Keep your body-mass index under 25.

• Supplements: Omega-3 fatty acids like those found in fish oil are good. Folic acid and antioxidants like vitamins E, C and beta carotene don't help with heart disease prevention.

• Blood pressure: Keep it under control. Take medication if needed, but first see your doctor for an assessment.

• Cholesterol: Keep the bad cholesterol under 100 if at high risk for heart disease and under 70 if at very high risk.

• Aspirin: Daily use urged for women at high risk. Dosage can go up to 325 milligrams. All other women should consider 81 milligrams or baby aspirin daily or 100 milligrams every other day for stroke prevention.

There you have it.

Skip the fries; get out the walking shoes; buy a lot of lentils and brown rice; take fish oil; know your blood pressure and cholesterol numbers - but most important - see your doctor to determine your heart disease risk and to design a plan to stay healthy.

I urge you to follow the advice of Dr. Lori Mosca, director of preventive cardiology at New York-Presbyterian Hospital and chair of the AHA expert panel that wrote the new guidelines.

"The updated guidelines emphasize the lifetime risk of women, not just the more short-term focus of the 2004 guidelines," Mosca said. "We took a long-term view of heart disease prevention because the lifetime risk of dying of cardiovascular disease is nearly one in three for women. This underscores the importance of healthy lifestyles in women of all ages to reduce the long-term risk of heart and blood vessel diseases."

Bottom line: Your heart is in your hands.

Protect it.

And the writer of this column should follow this advice as well.

By Donna Wright, health and social services reporter, can be reached at 745-7049 or at dwright@Bradenton.com.

Source: www.bradenton.com