Ways to Lower Your Heart Disease Risk
- Getting enough sleep reduces adrenaline and cortisol levels and the risk of heart disease. But it’s not enough to just lie down for seven hours, you have to get good rest and maintain healthy sleeping habits. It is estimated that apnea affects more than 18 million people worldwide. Sleep apnea increases the risk of resistant hypertension or high blood pressure problems that do not respond to usual treatment, significantly increasing the risk of developing heart disease or a stroke.
- Maintaining proper oral hygiene, brushing at least three times a day and flossing, is essential to prevent periodontal disease or gingivitis, but not only that: it can also save us from suffering a heart attack. Just like our gut, our mouth contains a number of bacteria that can be beneficial or harmful to our blood vessels and, consequently, to the functioning of our heart.
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- If we have high blood pressure, diabetes, overweight or obesity, have a poor diet, a sedentary lifestyle, or a family history of heart disease, we should ask to have our LDL and apolipoprotein B (apoB) levels tested as well. “These are the two best measures for discovering the true risk of a heart attack related to bad cholesterol.
- If our blood test shows deficiencies in vitamins B6 and B12 or folic acid, it could be a sign that we have high levels of homocysteine, an important sulfur amino acid in the blood, which increases the risk of developing cardiovascular disease and suffering arterial damage.
Including spicy food in our diet at least once a week significantly reduces the risk of dying from heart disease, thanks to capsaicin, the compound responsible for making food itchy.
