Seven simple guidelines for keeping your life healthy

The American Heart Association has identified seven simple guidelines for keeping your life healthy and staving off heart disease. Are they that simple and can you achieve them? Some of them are life choices you may already have made for yourself. Others you might have to work at in order to get what you want out of them in order to have a healthy heart. Let’s look at the seven simple rules (the “Simple 7”) to see if they are something you can manage or not.

Eat a healthier diet. You should eat plenty of fruits and vegetables so that your blood pressure is kept low and your weight is lower. Fruits and vegetables contain healthy antioxidants which can help your heart. You should eat fish about twice a week and choose only lean proteins in the meats you choose. Use fat free or low fat products when available and drink fat free milk. Make sure to stay away from saturated fats and trans fats, which aren’t good for your health.

Quit Smoking. Smoking is perhaps the most preventable cause of early death in the world. You have a higher risk of clogged arteries, strokes, heart attacks, other heart disease and cancers of many kinds if you continue to smoke. If you are a smoker, get professional help to become a non-smoker for good.

Exercise. Get as little as thirty minutes a day of moderate exercise like biking, walking, running, swimming or playing games like racquetball or tennis. This can keep your body lean and can prevent heart disease. By exercising your heart, it will work better and can prevent clogged arteries.

Keep your Cholesterol down. This may mean that you take one of the statin drugs available for lowering cholesterol. You should have a cholesterol level of less than 200 mg/dL. You can also eat foods low in cholesterol and stay away from trans fats and saturated fats.

Lose weight. Being overweight has recently been identified as an independent risk factor for heart disease. If you eat better and exercise daily, you should lose the weight easier and can be of a normal weight.

Keep your Blood Pressure down. Hypertension is the greatest risk factor for heart disease. If you cannot control your blood pressure, you should know that this can be deadly.

Watch your blood sugar. Those with diabetes or glucose intolerance have a higher risk for heart disease. In fact, the risk is two to four times that of people with normal blood sugar. This may mean you need to be treated with anti-diabetic medication and that you watch your sugar intake.