Today we’ll answer this important question: How can you decrease your risk of
coronary artery disease (CAD)?
Many things affect this. Let’s take them one at a time.
Blood pressure
High blood pressure will damage the arteries and affect the heart negatively. Our
arteries get stiffer as we age, so the pressure increases to compensate for that.
Some of this is genetic, and some is a natural process that we can’t stop.
However, there are things you can do to help protect the vessels, which will also
help protect the health of the heart. Doing these things to help protect your blood
vessels will decrease the progression and severity of high blood pressure, which
helps protect the heart. Haha! See how it all feeds off of each other? Avoiding salt
intake and doing routine exercise (30 min 5x/week for moderate or 45 min
3x/week for aggressive) help with this. Regardless of what you do, time marches
on, so if you do get high blood pressure, it is vital to control it. That’s the key to
this part of the puzzle.
High cholesterol
Cholesterol is a type of lipid, and lipids are fats. There are good fats and bad fats,
but I don’t want to get in the weeds on this. Basically, it’s important to get your
cholesterol checked and manage the levels and effects of it. This is another one of
those feedback loops where if you manage cholesterol, you improve heart health
at the same time. So, get this checked and treat the problem if it needs to be
treated.
Jeff Davenport,MD
Recent Comments