Happy life

lifestyle

Healthy heart

the heart of the matterYour heart is roughly the size of your fist and is located in the middle of your chest, but tilts slightly to the left. It is the strongest muscle in your body. Starting even before you were born, your heart is there to pump blood around all your body, ensuring that each organ and cell receives the vital oxygen and nutrients they need to function and stay alive.

the heart needs bloodTo do all this work, at a pace that matches our body’s needs, your heart, like any other muscle in your body, needs its own supply of the oxygen and nutrients carried in blood. Blood travels to every part of your heart in the coronary arteries, blood vessels about as wide as a drinking straw that branch out into thinner vessels. If this blood supply to your heart is interrupted, your heart can be in trouble.

a healthy heart for lifelove your heartYour heart is important. That’s nothing new. Think how often we talk about the heart; from the bottom of my heart, the heart of the matter, to have your heart in the right place… No other part of your body gets this treatment. After all, when did you last get to the kidney of the matter or get a liver-felt reaction?

The heart holds a special place in our lives, both physically and emotionally, and rightly so.

In this leaflet, we hope to convince you that because your heart is so very important, you should help it in its everyday job, treat it well and make some invaluable changes to your lifestyle.

a hearty taskOn average, a heart pumps 100,000 times every day, pumping a total 7,200 litres of blood over 19,000 km. That’s enough to fill a very large paddling pool and is the same distance as travelling by plane from London to Hong Kong and back. Not bad for a 300g pump about the same weight as a mango.

an aching hearta healthy heart for lifePorridge-like deposits (atheroma), made up of fat and cholesterol and other things, build up on the inside wall of the coronary arteries and harden (sclerosis). This process, known as atherosclerosis, gradually takes place over many years and causes the arteries to narrow and block and lose their elasticity. This interferes with the normal flow of blood to the heart muscle and affects the heart’s efficiency.

If the coronary arteries are partially blocked so that the heart muscle no longer receives enough blood and oxygen to match its needs, angina may occur. This is often felt as a chest pain, particularly during exercise, and is a warning sign for CHD.

If, on the other hand, a sudden blockage occurs, for instance when a blood clot blocks a narrowed artery, part of the heart muscle affected becomes starved of oxygen and is damaged. This is a heart attack.

A cardiac arrest is when the heart muscle cells cease to contract in a co-ordinated way. This results in a loss of pumping action and so blood is no longer delivered to the organs resulting in collapse. A cardiac arrest may occur in the early stages of a heart attack.

Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) happens when the blood supply to the heart muscle is reduced because the coronary arteries become too narrow or, worse still, become blocked.

the hard facts♥ Heart disease, stroke and other types of Cardiovascular Disease are the biggest killer in the UK and a major cause of ill health.

♥ There are more than 2.6 million people in the UK suffering from CHD and this is more common in Scotland and the north of England.

♥ Someone has a heart attack every 2 minutes, with a third of patients dying within 24 hours.

♥ Heart disease can affect all ages, races, men, women and children.

♥ Thanks to the great advances in medical knowledge and lifestyle interventions, there are many more people living with CHD than dying from it each year. But CHD has a great impact on the quality of life of sufferers, the nation’s productivity and health care costs, not to mention the psychological burden on family and friends it can bring.

a heart at riskA person is more likely to develop heart disease if he or she has certain characteristics or risk factors, which can be subdivided into the following:

Natural risk factors

Family history of CHD, high cholesterol or high blood pressure

Age; risk increases after 45 for men and 55 for women.

Ethnic background, in particular South Asians living in the UK.

Lifestyle risk factors

Smoking, whether active or passive

An unhealthy unbalanced diet

Lack of physical exercise

Clinical risk factors

High blood pressure

Raised blood cholesterol levels

Diabetes

Being overweight or obese

High waist circumference (being apple shaped)

The GOOD NEWS is that by making the right lifestyle choices you can eliminate the lifestyle risks, minimise clinical risk factors and, while natural risk factors cannot be changed, your chance of developing heart disease will be reduced.

YOU CAN CHOOSE TO HAVE A HEALTHY HEART

don’t smokeSmoking is the single biggest ‘lifestyle risk factor’.

By saying NO to smoking and avoiding smoky environments, you will dramatically reduce your risk of developing heart disease.

There are over 4000 chemicals in each cigarette. Chemicals such as nicotine, tar, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, benzene and cadmium, to name just a few.

Many of these are poisonous and some are particularly harmful to your heart as they increase blood pressure and heart rate, fur up your arteries, cause unhealthy cholesterol levels, make your blood more likely to clot and reduce your blood’s oxygen-carrying capacity. Worse still, nicotine is addictive, making it harder to give up.

Your heart and arteries will still suffer, whether you smoke cigarettes, roll ups, low-tar cigarettes, cigars, a pipe or breathe in someone else’s smoke.

Don’t start smoking.

If you do smoke, then give up today.

So, now you know more about why your heart is so important and how your lifestyle can seriously affect your heart’s health, are you ready to make the three small changes that will keep your heart healthy for the rest of your life?

A quarter of people in the UK still smoke despite the increased risk of serious health problems.

get your heart movingLeading an active lifestyle can dramatically reduce your risk of developing heart disease. Past activity levels don’t count, it’s how active you are now that matters.

Making your heart beat faster, so that you’re left feeling slightly out of breath and warm, will boost your heart’s health. It can lower your blood pressure, blood cholesterol levels, weight and risk of developing diabetes. Exercise is also a great way of improving your general fitness and making you feel on top of the world.

It will take less than you think. Only 30 minutes a day for 5 days of the week and you don’t need to do it all in one session. Include a variety of activities and tune into your heart beating faster.

It doesn’t have to be a form of torture, find something that you enjoy doing. Walking is a great way to start helping your heart. Everyone can do it, you don’t need any equipment and it’s easy to fit into your daily routine. Walk to work or to school with the kids, walk to the shops, keep up with your dog, take the stairs. Walk at lunchtime, in the evenings and at weekends. Just get those feet walking!

Always take a few minutes to warm up and cool down and build your exercise up gradually. If you suffer from any medical condition or have not exercised for some time, consult your doctor before you start.

1. Don’t smoke2. Be active3. Eat healthily

heart warming news

healthy heart eatingThe key to a healthy diet is to eat a wide variety of foods, in the right quantities, to match your body’s need for energy and nutrients.

A third of the food you eat should be fruit and vegetables, another third should be starchy foods such as bread, cereals, pasta, rice and potatoes. Wholegrain and wholemeal varieties are best because of their fibre content. The remaining third should include a moderate amount of dairy food, meat, fish and vegetarian alternatives and small amounts of food containing fats and sugar.

To make your diet a heart healthy diet, you also need to take two small, but significant, steps for your heart:

FATReduce the total amount you eat and avoid saturated and trans fats as much as possible as these fats lead to blood cholesterol levels that are unhealthy for your heart and arteries.

Saturated fat is mainly found in meat and dairy products. Trans fats, also known as ‘hydrogenated vegetable oil’, are found in processed foods, certain margarines and fried foods.

Replace saturates with mono-unsaturated fats, known to be beneficial to cholesterol levels, by using olive oil, rapeseed oil and eating some foods like avocadoes, nuts and seeds. Choose foods containing omega-3 fatty acids such as oily fish. These types of fat are all beneficial to your heart and arteries.

SALT Our bodies do need small amounts of salt but eating too much is linked to high blood pressure, one of the risk factors for heart disease.

Adults should have 6 grams per day, that’s about a teaspoon. This is very quickly reached because there is so much salt in the foods we buy. At least 75% of the salt we eat comes from processed foods such as bread, cheese, sausages, cereals, and biscuits.

By ditching the habit of adding salt when you cook or when you’re at the dinner table and checking food labels when you’re at the supermarket, you’ll be able to reduce the total amount of salt you eat.

Heart friendly foods

A variety of fruit and vegetables, starchy foods

(pasta, rice, potatoes..) wholegrain, high fibre

foods, oily fish (mackerel, salmon, fresh tuna,

sardines), small amounts of unsalted nuts,

products that are low in fat, sugar and salt,

olive and rapeseed oil, water

Not so friendlyFatty cuts of meat, butter, ghee, coconut, meat products (sausages, pies, burgers), fried foods, full-fat dairy products, biscuits, cakes, pastries, sweets, chocolate, crisps, tortillas, crackers, fizzy drinks

Beware - manufacturers often list sodium on the food label instead of salt. Remember: 1g sodium = 2.5g salt

Heart Research UK’s healthy heart message:

Visit our website www.heartresearch.org.uk

Heart Research UK, Suite 12D, Joseph’s Well, Leeds, LS3 1AB

T: 0113 234 7474 F: 0113 297 6208 E: info@heartresearch.org.uk

Registered Charity No.1044821. A company limited by guarantee No. 3026813. Registered in England

Heart Research UK’s work for healthy heartsSince it was founded, our charity has made a great impact in terms of research into heart disease, funding millions of pounds in medical projects at the cutting edge of science as well as focusing on the prevention, treatment and cure of heart disease.

We also like to help young researchers on their first steps into research. More and more, though, we want communities and individuals to encourage friends, families and colleagues to live healthier heart lifestyles.

We offer Healthy Heart Grants for community projects and go into schools and workplaces to deliver the healthy heart message.

If you would like any more information on our charity’s activities or on lifestyle issues, please get in touch on 0113 234 7474 or email us at lifestyle@heartresearch.org.uk

Healthy heart, happy lifeOther Heart Research UK leaflets are available on the following topics:

Being Active

Healthy Eating

Cholesterol

Smoking

Diabetes

Blood pressure

and many more...

rememberA Happy heart means

Eating more fruit and vegetables starchy foods and oily fish

Avoiding foods that are high in fat, sugar and salt

Regularly exercising and being

Tobacco free