Nutrition and Diet Tips

Three important risk factors for heart disease you can control are high blood cholesterol, high blood pressure, and smoking. If you have only one of these risk factors, your risk of heart disease doubles. If you have three risk factors, your risk is eight times higher than if you do not have. Other important risk factors for heart disease include age, sex, diabetes, family history and medical history.

* High Cholesterol

Too much cholesterol in the bloodstream can contribute to their accumulation in the arteries, causing atherosclerosis. High cholesterol can often be controlled with diet changes, but in some cases medication is needed.

High blood pressure

The second major risk factor for heart attacks, and the leading cause of stroke is high blood pressure, or hypertension.

* Smoking

Smoking increases the risk of heart attack by decreasing the concentration of HDL “good” and increase blood pressure. The concentration of HDL cholesterol in a person who smokes can detectably increase when you stop smoking.

* Lack of exercise

The investigation by the American Heart Association (American Heart Association) shows that regular aerobic exercise actually strengthens the heart muscle, enhances HDL levels, lowers blood pressure, slows the progression of diabetes, and helps prevent obesity. Almost all organizations recommend about 30 to 40 minutes of moderate exercise four or more days a week.

* Obesity

Research shows that obesity should be considered a major risk factor for heart disease, rather than one that simply contributes to other risk factors such as diabetes and high blood pressure.

* Diabetes

People with diabetes are susceptible to heart disease. People with poorly controlled diabetes often have multiple health problems including high cholesterol and other movement disorders that lead to atherosclerosis, bleeding from a small-caliber blood vessels in the eye, and inadequate circulation to the feet and hands. Smoking makes these problems worse.

Nutrition during pregnancy is one of the main factors we must consider must pay special attention to:

• Folic acid is a vitamin that needs to drink daily. Deficiency leads to anemia, premature detachment of the placenta, infants with low birth weight and some malformations, mostly of the nervous system.
  Although present in many foods, which are subjected to heat during the cooking process makes it possible to destroy, so it is necessary to consume fresh fruits and vegetables without cooking, and, as ordered, take a multivitamin with this vitamin.
• If a pregnant woman has some degree of malnutrition may occur low birth weight, intrauterine growth retardation and fetal or neonatal death. In addition, it increases the risk of heart disease, hypertension and diabetes in adolescence and adulthood.

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