Cracking the Nut of Heart Disease Prevention
London (PRWEB UK) 19 July 2013 -- The biggest killer in the UK today is cardiovascular disease, also known as (CHD), causing around 82,000 deaths each year. About one in five men and one in eight women die from the disease. In the UK, there are an estimated 2.7m people living with the condition and 2m people affected by angina (the most common symptom of coronary heart disease).1 According to the British Heart Foundation heart disease affects more men than women, although after the 50’s the statistics even out between men and women developing CHD.
The main symptoms related to cardiovascular disease are chest pains, which are known as angina, heart attacks and heart failure, but until CHD is actually diagnosed there may be no symptoms showing at all. Having regular exercise, maintaining a healthy diet, and ensuring healthy heart habits are taught to children, including being aware that smoking, drinking, stress and high blood pressure can all trigger a higher risk in developing heart disease in the future.
Chemist Direct Pharmacist Nada Elia states: “Be more physically active, combining a healthy diet with regular exercise is the best way of maintaining a healthy weight. People who do not exercise are twice as likely to have a heart attack as those who exercise regularly. The heart is a muscle and like any other muscle it benefits from exercise. A strong heart can pump more blood around your body with less effort. Any aerobic exercise, such as walking, swimming and even dancing, makes your heart work harder and keeps it healthy.”
The key to having a healthy heart is finding a balance in the amounts and variety of the food consumed. Eating larger portions than necessary or indulging in fast foods and processed foods may result in obesity or high cholesterol, increasing your risk of developing heart problems.
A diet based on starchy foods such as potatoes, rice and pasta; with plenty of fruit and vegetables; some protein-rich foods such as meat, fish and lentils; some milk and dairy foods; and not too much fat, salt or sugar, will give you all the nutrients you need. 2 Too much sodium in the diet, which is anything exceeding 6g of salt a day, can increase blood pressure, and increased amounts of saturated fats, the kind of fat found in butter and lard, pies, cakes and biscuits, fatty cuts of meat, sausages and bacon, and cheese and cream, will raise the cholesterol levels in the blood, blocking the arteries and leading to heart failure.
As part of a healthy diet, try to cut down on foods containing trans fats or saturated fats, and replace them with foods containing unsaturated fats. Most of us eat too much saturated fat – about 20% more than the recommended maximum amount. 3
• The average man should eat no more than 30g of saturated fat a day.
• The average woman should eat no more than 20g of saturated fat a day.
Eating foods that contain unsaturated fat instead of saturated fat can actually help reduce cholesterol levels. Try to replace foods containing saturated fats with foods that are high in unsaturated fats, such as:
• Oily fish (e.g. mackerel and salmon)
• Nuts (e.g. almonds and cashews)
• Seeds (e.g. sunflower and pumpkin)
• Vegetable oils and spreads (e.g. sunflower, olive, corn, walnut and rapeseed oils)
In a study conducted by the Universitat Rovira i Virgili, based in Spain, it was found that a diet rich in nuts, particularly walnuts, produced a lower BMI and waist size, which increased the health and prevention of cardiovascular disease. Over 7000 randomized older people (aged 55 to 90), in the Mediterranean region, participated in this study as a control group being that nut consumption is relatively high there compared to other countries. It was found that people who ate more than 3 servings (1 serving -- 28 g) a week of nuts reduced risk of death due to cardiovascular disease by 55% and cancer by 40%.
Nut eating was associated with a better diet in general as these people ate more vegetables, fruit and fish, were less likely to smoke and were more physically active than those who rarely or never ate nuts. Overall, nut eaters had a 39% lower mortality risk and walnut eaters 45% lower -- meaning that they were less likely to die than the non-nut eaters.4
Of course this study is inconclusive in how effective it would be for those in the UK as Prof Jordi Salas-Salvadó, who led this study explained, "Quite how nuts are able prevent premature mortality is not entirely clear, nor why walnuts should be better for you than other nuts. Walnuts have particularly high content of alpha-linoleic acid and phytochemicals, especially in their 'skin' both of which, along with fibre and minerals such as calcium, magnesium and potassium, may contribute to their healthy effect." 5
References
1. http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Coronary-heart-disease/Pages/Introduction.aspx
2. http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Goodfood/Pages/Eat-less-saturated-fat.aspx
3. http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Healthyhearts/Pages/Cholesterol.aspx
4. http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/11/164
5. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130715202458.htm
Samantha Smith, Chemist Direct, 0121 541 4952, [email protected]
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