Lifestyle Advice - Preventing Heart Disease
By Susie Black - get free updates of new articles here
Last month we looked at lifestyle advice for bone health. If you missed it, you can catch up HERE
Today we're looking at general lifestyle advice for heart disease.
Firstly, what is heart disease?
The NHS describes coronary heart disease as "what happens when your heart's blood supply is blocked or interrupted by a build-up of fatty substances in the coronary arteries".
According to the British Heart Foundation, heart and circulatory diseases cause around a quarter of all deaths in the UK; that's more than 160,000 deaths each year, or 460 each day – that’s one death every three minutes.
The main symptoms of coronary heart disease are:
chest pain (angina)
shortness of breath
pain throughout the body
feeling faint
feeling sick
This build up of fatty substances is called atherosclerosis and can be caused by lifestyle factors such as smoking or excessive drinking as well as other factors which may or may not be related to lifestyle choices like high cholesterol, high blood pressure or diabetes.
HERE'S THE LINK to the Lifestyle Advice Sheet on preventing and managing heart disease. CLICK HERE for information about age-related changes to your heart.
As you can imagine, maintaining a healthy weight helps prevent heart disease but did you also know about the importance of waist circumference? It appears that the placing of your fat is as important as the overall body fat percentage. There are two ways to check your waist circumference for health. Please click on the links for more information plus test methods:
If your results make you want to manage your weight differently then get in touch. We'll come up with a plan of action to suit.
