Reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease by learning a bit about heart health
February is a month when we let the people in our lives know how much we care. Give some of that love to your own heart this season by learning the basics of how to keep your heart healthy.
“Cardiovascular health is pretty important,” explained Adriana Kovaltchouk, a primary care nurse at Selkirk Community Health Office, “The heart is really important for your health, it pumps blood and delivers oxygen and nutrients to all other organs in the body.”
Heart disease is a general term used to describe when your heart isn’t working properly. It can be present at birth but can also develop over the course of people’s lives.
Luckily, there are a few things that we can do to keep our hearts in the best shape possible.
“There’re a couple of recommendations mainly to keep your heart healthy. It is a muscle so it needs good nutrients, so a healthy diet and daily exercise. It’s recommended to have about 30 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise a day, and it’s always recommended to have lots of fruits and vegetables, whole grains and healthy fats in your diet,” said Kovaltchouk.
Some risk factors for heart disease that residents will want to keep track of, according to the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada’s website (accessed on Feb. 7, 25), are: an unhealthy diet, not enough exercise, smoking (tobacco misuse), too much alcohol, birth control and HRT, recreational drug use, and stress.
Ideally, we would all want to live lives where we prevent heart disease when possible, but, it’s also important for residents to be able to identify the signs of a heart attack in themselves and others.
“There’s a couple of cardinal signs of a heart attack, and the main one is usually chest pain. The pain is usually centrally located. It can radiate to your left arm. It could locate up to the jaw. It can even locate to the back, in between the shoulder blades. You can get some shortness of breath. You can feel really weak, can feel nauseous, and you might feel like your heart’s escaping, or you might feel like you’re about to faint,” said Kovaltchouk.
Though the majority of heart disease and stroke clinical research has focused on men, it’s now being recognized that women experience heart attack symptoms differently.
“A lot of the time, women can have atypical symptoms of heart attack. Sometimes they might not even have any chest pain. They might just notice that they have shortness of breath, that they’re really weak, or they might have some pain that feels like it might be even heartburn. These are definitely things not to ignore and to seek help as soon as you notice them,” said Kovaltchouk.
She explained that making changes to prevent heart disease isn’t all about preventing a heart attack, it can also help to improve other areas of your life.
“It can definitely improve your quality of life, right? You’ll have more energy. You’ll be able to continue to do things in your everyday life and basically just enjoy having a general, overall, healthy life,” said Kovaltchouk.
She also says that there are resources out there that can help residents on their journey to improve their heart health.
“There’s a couple of websites that they can access. There’s the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada website that they can go ahead and look at. There’s also the Canadian Food Guide that they can go ahead and look up. It shows really nice infographics of what a healthy plate would look like with good proportioning showing what’s a good amount of vegetables versus meat versus dairy and fats. You can also ask your primary care provider for some general health tips and (get) yearly checkups to make sure that everything is working well,” she said.
Kovaltchouk says that if she could give everyone one piece of advice to prevent heart disease it would be going to see your health care provider regularly.
“I think it’s really important to be screened regularly by your health provider. There’s a lot of things that go into heart health — making sure that you control your cholesterol, your blood pressure, and also things like monitoring and preventing things like diabetes or other kidney disease – (that a health care provider can help with),” she said
Kovaltchouk explained that this time of year is a great time to start thinking about your heart health.
“You definitely see the pictures of hearts everywhere. It’s a staple for Valentine’s Day. I think it’s a good idea to just remind ourselves and take care of our loved ones so that we can continue to stay healthy throughout our lives,” she said.
For more information talk to your doctor, or visit the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada’s website at www.heartandstroke.ca or the Canadian Food Guide can be found online at food-guide.canada.ca.
