Did you know?
Gone are those days where you may have had a stereotypical image or a visual of what type of person you may expect to have a heart attack. I know for me, many years ago my image would have been of a man in a middle to later age band, who maybe have been overweight, smoked & didn't exercise.
Sadly today, research shows that as many women as men are living with heart and circulatory disease in the UK.
Each year circa 28,000 women in the UK die from heart attacks, and coronary heart disease which kills more than twice as many women as breast cancer.
There are 3 primary ways in which the heart can go wrong:
- The Heart Muscle - which can become inflamed and struggle to pump as well as need to.
- The electricity of the heart - this is where is causes it to beat too fast or too slow.
- The blood supply in the coronary artery - this is the most common and can occur due to a process, as you maybe aware called atherosclerosis. This is where the artery walls basically "fur up" due to a build up of fatty deposits and cholesterol (atheroma) which narrows the gap through which blood can travel.
The chambers of secrets:
Research again suggests that heart attacks show up differently for women.
Indicators in women can be slightly different to men, and can include overwhelming fatigue, on-off pressure in the chest and pain in the back, neck and even the stomach.
Protect and preserve:
It probably won't come as a massive surprise but eating more:
- Fruit and vegetables.
- Regular servings of unsaturated fats found in nuts and oily fish to name just a couple.
- Wholegrain foods - such as whole-wheat bread & pasta, brown rice, quinoa, oats and bulgar as a few examples.
- And of course moving and exercising more!
Try and avoid or limit:
- Adding salt to your cooking & to your meals.
- Jars of sauces, frozen & ready meals which can be extremely high in salt & sugars.
- Processed foods and foods high in unnatural sugars.
- Excessive alcohol - all in moderation! Having had just a few drinks on the weekend after pretty much 4 months of not having any my resting heart rate went from 45BPM to 69BPM the following day. Just shows what alcohol does!!
