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Did you know that someone has a heart attack every 40 seconds in the US? Or that heart disease is the leading cause of death among Americans?
Now let’s go in a far less frightening and more optimistic direction — about 90% of heart disease is preventable if you take certain steps to improve your health.
As a board-certified cardiologist, Dr. Satjit Bhusri is all too familiar with these statistics, which is why he and the team here at Upper East Side Cardiology want to review some key preventive cardiology practices. Let’s take a look.
What is a heart attack?
Before we dive into best practices for preventing a heart attack, let’s review what occurs when you have one. Quite simply, a heart attack occurs when the blood flow to your heart is blocked or limited. This deprives your heart muscle of critical oxygen.
This blood flow problem is usually due to plaque buildup in your arteries, a condition called atherosclerosis, which limits how much blood can flow through.
Heart attack prevention strategies
We mentioned that most heart disease, which includes heart attack, is highly preventable and here are the top five steps you can take to that end:
1. Improve your diet
One of the primary ways that your arteries become clogged is through unhealthy eating habits that favor fatty foods that contain high levels of bad cholesterol and triglycerides. One of the most effective heart attack prevention strategies is to move your diet away from junk and processed foods and over to the Mediterranean diet, which focuses on:
- Fruits
- Vegetables
- Whole grains
- Lean proteins
- Healthy fats
To get you started, we invite you to check out this link where you can find more details about the Mediterranean diet meal plan.
2. Get moving
Exercise is another important piece of the heart attack prevention puzzle. So, if you lead a more sedentary lifestyle, we want you to get moving — at least 30 minutes per day to start and then you can increase that to about an hour (or more). Since we live in a walking city, moving shouldn’t be all that difficult.
3. Lose unhealthy pounds
Did you know that three-quarters of Americans are either overweight or have obesity? These unhealthy pounds can greatly raise your risks for heart attack so, if you’re overweight, you can improve your health on almost every level through weight loss.
We’re happy to help you with this effort by providing you with weight loss tools and resources. Bear in mind, that moving more and switching over to healthier eating habits will go a long way toward weight loss.
4. Quit those vices
Smoking and vaping are two lifestyle habits that need to go if you want to prevent a heart attack. Using nicotine and tobacco damages blood vessels and sets you on a fast track for heart health issues. If you smoke or vape, make this the reason you quit.
As well, heavy drinking is another risk factor for heart attack, so we suggest that you keep your alcohol consumption to no more than one drink per day.
5. Know your risks
Too many Americans don’t understand their cardiovascular risks, which is why they feel like heart attacks strike out of the blue. Well, the signs were likely there if they knew where to look, such as tracking blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
It’s important that you work with us to assess your risks, such as hypertension, high cholesterol, heredity, and other factors that can place you in danger.
To figure out whether you’re at risk for heart attack and what steps you should take next, we invite you to call our New York City office on the Upper East Side of Manhattan at 212-752-3464. You can also request information online by clicking here.