How to lower your risk of heart disease

It’s important to understand that heart disease is due to risk factors, and if we understand our risks we can reduce them. In 1948, the Framingham Risk Score Analysis began to track heart disease risk factors and develop a profile of who was at risk.

• The Framingham Risk Score Analysis looked at lifestyle risk factors—age, high blood pressure, total cholesterol, HDL cholesterol and smoking. Now we know of more risk factors:

• Inflammatory markers, something called CRP, diabetes is an important risk factor, and family history. A sedentary life style, stress, obesity, all come into play when you look at an individual’s risk.

How to Minimize Your Risk of Heart Disease:

Certain people are clearly at greater risk, but those of us who exercise, eat well, and don’t have family history are in fact, not really at risk.

• 80 percent of incidences of heart disease could be modified by lifestyle changes.

• If you have two or more risk factors, and you take a baby aspirin, 81 milligrams daily, and a medication such as statin, you exercise, you eat well, your chances of getting heart disease go down significantly.

Women don’t think heart disease is a woman’s problem, but that’s a big mistake. Women are at risk their whole lives if they don’t take care of themselves.

• It only takes 30 minutes of exercise a day to protect your heart. But you don’t have to do it all at once. If you spend 20 minutes, dancing and playing with your baby, or climbing the stairs, you will increase your heart rate. If you can get your heart rate up 30 minutes a day, over the course of the whole day, not even all at once, that’s protective for your heart.