High blood pressure! Often means you need to lose weight.

High blood pressure! often means that you need to lose weight.

There are many factors that involve our vulnerability to heart disease. As well as Hereditary history , sex and age, we must also consider how physically active we are ,the measure of stress we have to endure, whether or not we smoke, what we eat and very significantly, whether or not we are overweight.

Before we go into the Diet and Overweight issue let us first consider the other factors that can start heart disease.

People that have a hereditary history are often at more risk,and they should take particular care to follow preventative guidelines to reduce the risk to a minimum. There is no doubt that the older we get the more chance there is of suffering a heart attack . The narrowing of the arteries which can cause angina and heart attacks tends to increase with age .

Apart from age, sex and family history, the other factors that contribute are what we do so the choice really is ours!

Cigarette smoking can twofold our risk of demise from a heart attack and heavy smokers are even more likely to die a young person.

The reason cigarette smoking adversely affects the heart is because the nicotine in tobacco smoke increases the blood pressure. This is because the carbon monoxide content of cigarette smoke cuts down the amount of oxygen in the blood and accordingly the heart has to work harder yet it is getting less oxygen.

Hypertension, or high blood pressure, is when the resting blood pressure is higher than normal. Whilst high blood pressure is rare among young people it is common among those 35 and over, no doubt caused by following a unhealthy lifestyle – eating too much, consuming too much alcohol, having too much salt in our food , smoking, lack of exercise, and suffering from too much stress.

The good news is that to stop high blood pressure can be restricted by a reduction in your weight to the correct level, by not drinking too much alcohol, by stopping smoking, eating less salt, increasing the amount of exercise and by learning to slow down.

Stress and anxiety are self-inflicted, however a certain amount of stress is an all important part of our everyday life. It keeps us on our toes.

Whilst exercise is regularly advocated as essential to a healthy heart this recommendation is often misunderstood .

Regular moderate exercise such as brisk walking is the answer for a start. As you become fitter you may be able to do more and more , but moderation is the key factor. But whatsoever we decide to do, it must be continued in the long term. It is therefore essential to find a form of activity that we enjoy so that we are happy to practice it two or three times a week and continue it for the rest of our lives.

Obesity can also increase the risk of heart disease, because of all the other conditions that it can create ( high blood pressure and diabetes are the most common). The more overweight you are the more likely you are to get high blood pressure and diabetes.

So to sum up, if we want to help ourselves towards a healthy heart and a long and healthy life we need to eat a Smart diet, take regular exercise and stop smoking. If we can get a Healthy weight loss diet plan to reduce our weight to virtually that of our youth and eat well enough to give us the energy to work and live our lives to the full, we will all benefit.