How to take control of your heart health before it’s too late

“About 1 out of 3 people in America will die of heart disease,” says National Institutes of Health (NIH) heart disease expert Dr. David C. Goff, Jr. He adds, in an NIH newsletter, “And about 6 out of every 10 of us will have a major heart disease event before we die.”

Now that I’ve got your attention with this somber information, I can give you good news – in a world in which there is little that you can control, you have enormous control over your risk factors for heart disease. Falling within the guidelines for those risk factors can add years to your life. That truth has been well-documented in rigorous, long-term studies. Note, though, that was determined based on hundreds of thousands of people in the American population, and individual risk varies widely.

February is Heart Health Month. It’s a time to raise your awareness about cardiovascular health and act to better protect yourself from heart disease.

Heart disease develops when the blood vessels carrying oxygen-rich blood to the heart muscle become clogged with fatty deposits, called plaque. The deposits narrow the vessel reducing blood flow to the muscle. Eventually, an area of plaque can break open, causing a clot to form on the plaque’s surface. It blocks blood flow to the heart, causing a heart attack.

The three biggest risk factors for heart disease were identified in the 1960s in the NIH’s groundbreaking Framingham Heart Study of thousands of people in Framingham, Massachusetts, a study ongoing today. Can you name them?

If you said smoking, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol you were right. “If we could eliminate cigarette smoking, elevated blood pressure, and elevated cholesterol levels, we could eradicate about 9 out of 10 heart attacks in our country,” says heart specialist Dr. Daniel Levy, who currently leads the Framingham Heart Study.

The study has revealed other risk factors for heart disease, including obesity, diabetes, and physical inactivity. Levy’s research team is hunting for genetic risk factors for heart disease.

What to do to decrease your risk for heart disease

Get tested

Regular checkups are important because early heart disease usually doesn’t cause any symptoms. “The sad truth is that the vast majority of us have heart disease, and we don’t know it,” Goff says.

Cholesterol levels and blood pressure can be early signs of heart disease that should get our attention. See your doctor. Know your cholesterol and blood pressure numbers. Take medication, if needed.

There are other tests to detect heart disease. An EKG measures electrical activity in your heart. It can show how well various areas and electrical pathways in your heart are working and identify signs of a previous heart attack.

An echocardiogram is an ultrasound viewing of your heart in motion, measuring blood flow through your heart as it pictures its size, shape, and structures.

Make healthy choices

“The most important thing for everyone to do to keep their heart healthy – to keep their entire body healthy – is to eat a healthy diet, get plenty of physical activity, maintain a lean body weight, and avoid smoking and exposure to secondhand smoke,” Goff says.

For a heart-healthy diet half your plate should be fruits and vegetables, a quarter should be whole grains, and a quarter should be lean protein like lean meat or seafood

If you have high blood pressure, you may want to follow the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet. This diet emphasizes fruits, vegetables, whole-grain foods, and low-fat dairy products.

Goff also advises, “Avoid foods that have a lot of salt in them. Salt is a major contributor to high blood pressure and risk of heart disease.”

Prevent Diabetes

Diabetes increases your chances of high blood pressure and high cholesterol. You’re also more likely to develop heart disease and have a heart attack.

“Having diabetes is almost like already having heart disease,” says Dr. Larissa Avilés-Santa, a diabetes and heart health expert at NIH. She oversees a large NIH study of heart disease risk factors among more than 16,000 Hispanic/Latino adults.

The best way to prevent diabetes is through diet and physical activity. “The evidence is outstanding that very modest changes in lifestyle could reduce the risk of developing diabetes much greater than medication,” Avilés-Santa says.

Get Help

For some individuals, a heart attack may be the initial indicator of heart disease. Symptoms can include pain or discomfort in the chest or upper body, cold sweat, or shortness of breath. If any of these symptoms occur, it is important to seek medical assistance immediately. Prompt action can potentially save lives and prevent lasting damage.

Heart disease and heart attacks are major risks for cardiac arrest, in which the heart stops beating. Blood flow to the brain and body ceases, and if untreated, within minutes it results in death.

Heart disease and heart attacks can affect the functioning of your heart’s electrical system. This may result in an irregular heartbeat, or arrhythmia, where the heart beats too fast, too slow, or with an uneven rhythm. Severe arrhythmias can lead to cardiac arrest.

Regular checkups help ensure that a doctor will check your heart for problems. Heart disease and arrhythmias can be treated to lower the risk of cardiac arrest.

Be good to your heart. Don’t take it for granted. Get tested for heart disease, and follow your doctor’s suggestions.