A new study shows that women can significantly cut their risk of having a heart attack by eating right, drinking a moderate amount of alcohol, staying physically active, maintaining a healthy weight and not smoking. "If women adopted these five 'rather simple' healthy diet and lifestyle factors, most heart attacks (i.e., 77 percent) could be avoided," Dr. Agneta Akesson from the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, noted in an email to Reuters Health.
Akesson and colleagues studied the dietary and lifestyle patterns of 24,444 postmenopausal women enrolled in a clinical trial in 1997. At the time, none of the women had heart disease, diabetes or cancer. By analyzing information contained in "food frequency" questionnaires, in which the women noted how often they ate 96 different foods, the researchers identified four major dietary patterns. They were: "healthy" (vegetables, fruits and legumes); "Western/Swedish" (red meat, processed meat, poultry, rice, pasta, eggs, fried potatoes and fish); "alcohol" (wine, liquor, beer and some snacks); and "sweets" (sweet baked goods, candy, chocolate, jam and ice cream).
Other information, including family history of heart disease, education level, physical activity, and body measurements, was also collected.
During an average of more than 6 years follow-up, 308 women had heart attacks. In the Archives of Internal Medicine, the investigators report that two types of dietary patterns — healthy and alcohol — were significantly associated with decreased risk of heart attack.Women who maintained a healthy diet — eating lots of vegetables, fruit, whole grains, fish and legumes — and drank a less than a quarter ounce of alcohol daily had a 57-percent lower risk of having a first heart attack, compared to women who maintained a less healthy diet and lifestyle pattern.
Moreover, the women combining the healthy diet and moderate drinking with the three healthy lifestyle factors (not smoking, being physically active and avoiding too much weight gain) had a 92-percent lower risk of heart attack. "The combined benefit of diet, lifestyle, and healthy body weight may prevent more than three of four cases of MI (heart attack) in our study population," Akesson and colleagues report.
Steve - surprised by these results? I think not.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
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Although many people think of heart disease as a man's problem, women can and do get heart disease. I was in the same misconception regarding the heart disease, but was made aware by a medical checkup campaign. In fact, heart disease is the number one killer of women in the United States. It is also a leading cause of disability among women.
The most common cause of heart disease is narrowing or blockage of the coronary arteries, the blood vessels that supply blood to the heart itself. This is called coronary artery disease and happens slowly over time. It's the major reason people have heart attacks. Prevention is important: two-thirds of women who have a heart attack fail to make a full recovery.
The older a woman gets, the more likely she is to get heart disease. But women of all ages should be concerned about heart disease. All women can take steps to prevent it by practicing healthy lifestyle habits.
Actually, right now I am suffering from a blockage in the coronary artery and was once blocked up to 85%. I got the stent implantation which is a mesh like spring which is used to broaden the artery and hence restoring back the blood flow. You can see further information regarding stent operation from www.heartsite.com/html/stent.html. I got to know everything regarding my stent operation from this site. I was really unaware of such a blockage. I sometimes feel dizzy, restless, lazy, but thought that to be something related to mental ability, and hence never worried about it. Once I got my basic medical checkup at Elite health medical office in Los Angeles. The ECG report went to be something suspicious. So, they advised me to have further advance diagnosis to determine and assure regarding the problem in the heart. After my MRI, CT scan and other such scans it came to me as a shock that I was facing a problem of blockage. It was quite surprising to me, and as I was not aware of anything regarding this, I was really frightened. The doctors explained me every information regarding my health and its treatment, and suggested me to have stent operation. That was some dreadful days of my life, which I faced only because I was careless about my health. It was my luck that I somehow went for a basic checkup at elite health, but every woman out there may not be so lucky.
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