10 Heart Health Facts Including Supplements, Exercise, and Diet

The great is one of the most important organs of the body because it pumps blood needed for the survival of every part of the human body. The heart is a muscular chamber responsible for distributing blood to the body circulation. Our lifestyle habits and dietary choices play a major role in how efficient our heart works.

There are different types of inflammatory diseases such as myocarditis, heart attack and stroke that could reduce the work output and efficiency of the heart. The combination of a  proper diet and active lifestyles are the best ways to enhance your heart health and prevent various cardiovascular diseases and conditions.

The best diets are diets rich in protein with moderate carbohydrates and fat ratio. The amount of daily calories needed varies among individuals depending on different factors. The factors that determine the recommended daily intake for different individuals includes your body mass index(BMI),  level of activity, body weight, and fitness goals.  Meeting our daily requirement could become an uphill task due to different tedious work schedules paving way for the need for various types of supplements. Supplements are healthy alternative needed to augment our normal diet regimen. It is not a substitute for food intake, rather it should be used as a supplement to prevent nutritional deficiencies and restricted calorie intake.

There are different types of exercise that could enhance our heart health both with our body weight and gym equipment. The mechanism of action of this different exercise is consistency active lifestyle. The best form of exercise to enhance heart health is to keep moving. Little tweaks in our lifestyle habits such as taking the stairs instead of the lift, standing up form your working desk and taking a walk often at your place or walk, or just walking for 15 minutes daily could enhance our heart health. Enhancing your heart health is made easy by just moving often. Keep moving to enhance your heart health.

We are what we eat is a common phrase uttered by medical experts and fitness enthusiasts. The type of Diet journey you embark on could have a lot of effects on your heart health. Most cardiovascular diseases occur as a result of excessive fat deposition around the heart or obesity. Obesity and excessive fat deposit can be eliminated by a combination of proper diet and effective training regimen.

There are different types of diet such as Paleo, Mediterranean and keto diet. All these diets are based on calorie restriction principle. Most diets try to restrict your calorie intake to eliminate obesity and unwanted fatty deposits around the heart.

10 Heart Health Facts

Our heart is a very precious organ that deserves a lot of care and attention if you want it to work at its optimum best. There are basic heart health facts everyone needs to have at their fingertips to prevent cardiovascular diseases and live long and healthy. Some of these facts include:

  1. Exercise duration: You don’t have to be a professional athlete or fitness guru to benefit from heart health enhancing exercises. Medical and fitness experts recommend an average of 75-150 minutes of consistent aerobic exercise weekly to keep your heart in shape. Aerobic exercises are exercises th\t increase your heart rate and regulates how your heart consumes and manage oxygen consumption and usage. The most important factor in enhancing your heart health is consistency. It has been discovered doing anything for some certain number of minutes daily or weekly consistently for 6 months would show a dramatic improvement in any area targeted. Doing aerobic exercises consistently for a minimum of 75- 150 minutes weekly is enough to enhance your heart health.
  2. Walking: It is not a coincidence that humans have 2 legs and our bodies are oriented in a vertical position. Our bodies and legs are created in a way to encourage more walking. Walking is the simplest form of exercise to enhance our heart health. Walking does not have to be stressful; it needs to be progressive and consistent. Start by walking for a few distances and spice it up with your pets, favorite music or friends.
  3. Running: This is an advanced form of walking to enhance our heart health. This should be done progressively depending on your fitness levels. You can start by alternating between walking and run until you are fit enough to run without walking in between.
  4. Swimming: This is an alternative to walking and running especially for people with the high schedule, low fitness levels or joint problems. Swimming increases our heart rate and enhances our muscular tone.
  5. Cycling: This is one of the beneficial multitasking exercises to enhance your heart health .You can enjoy this exercise while running an errand . do it in the gym, or with friends in a cycling class.
  6. Interval training: This involves doing different exercises in the gym that increases your heart rate. These benefits can be achieved by reducing your rest periods to 30-60 seconds between sets
  7. Fruits and vegetables: Vegies are not just meant for vegetarians but contains a lot of vitamins and minerals that can enhance your heart health
  8. Fish and Soy Foods:  Fishes that contains a lot of omega-3 fatty acids are a good source of food to enhance your heart health. Soy foods contain a lot of proteins which are the building block for muscle synthesis.
  9. Sterols and Stanols: These are cholesterol lowering supplements that help to keep our cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein in check. Taking 2g a day of Sterols and stanols helps in lowering low-density lipoproteins which predisposes humans to diabetes and other cardiovascular
  10. Coenzymes q10(co q 10): This is a food supplement produced to replace ubiquinone This supplement helps in lowering blood pressure and helps in neutralizing the side effects of statins.

The functioning capacity of your heart depends on your lifestyle choices and habits. Enhancing your heart health through the combination of a proper diet and proper training regimen. The best heart health facts are proper diet, good sleep, proper training regimen and using the right supplements.

 

References

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Kent, L. (2017). What Diseases Come From Eating Too Much Sugar?. [online] LIVESTRONG.COM. Available at: https://www.livestrong.com/article/473283-what-diseases-come-from-eating-too-much-sugar/ [Accessed 26 Dec. 2017].

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Simpson, G. (2017). 5 serious diseases caused by sugar. [online] Esquire Middle East. Available at: https://www.esquireme.com/content/15484-5-serious-diseases-caused-by-sugar [Accessed 26 Dec. 2017].

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