Study offers heart-healthy advice for living longer

Checkups, weight management, exercise key to healthy heart

The Estacada News, Feb 4, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (1 Reader comment)

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Taking care of your heart is hard. Or it can certainly seem that way. Heart disease remains the number one killer of men and women in the United States. So what can you do to be heart-healthy? Researchers at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health have boiled the question down to the three best—and the three worst--things you can do for your heart.

“If you can incorporate these things into your daily life, you’re giving yourself a much better chance to enjoy a long and healthy life, free of heart disease,” says Dr. James Stein, director of preventive cardiology at UW Hospital and Clinics and professor of medicine at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health.

Let’s start with the bad news. If you’re doing any of the following, you’re increasing your chances of heart disease.

Puffing. If you’re one of the millions of Americans who are still smoking, know this: With every puff, you’re dramatically increasing your chances of suffering a life-threatening heart attack. The chemicals in tobacco smoke raise blood pressure, reduce good cholesterol (HDL) and damage your blood vessels. But if you can find a way to quit and stay away from smoking permanently, you can reduce your risk almost immediately and eliminate tobacco’s negative effects within three years.

Finishing the entire six-pack: Excessive drinking of wine, beer or hard liquor can result in both weight gain and increased blood pressure. And if you’re a chronically heavy drinker, you’re poisoning your heart and risking cardiomyopathy—an enlarged and permanently damaged heart.

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