What is a Heart-healthy diet?
Keeping your heart healthy is effortless when you look at the big pictures. Your heart is a finely pumping machine, which pumps blood through the blood vessels of the circulatory system. you must go through Heart Healthy diet in other to keep your heart in good shape.
Greater than 1 in 10 Americans have been diagnosed with cardiovascular disease. Cardiovascular disease accounts for nearly one-third of all deaths worldwide.
Diet plays an eloquent role in heart health and can impact your risk of cardiovascular disease. Protecting your heart goes beyond avoiding unhealthy foods. To slash your risk of cardiovascular disease, it’s also important to up your intake of nutrient-rich and high fibre foods, which is also known as a Heart Healthy diet.
Certain foods can impact the blood pressure, triglycerides, the cholesterol levels in the blood and the inflammation in the body, all of which are risk factors of cardiovascular disease, including myocardial infarction and stroke.
Here are nine Heart Healthy diets that you should intake to maximize your heart health.
Oatmeal
Oatmeal is the tasty breakfast which is high in soluble fibre. Oatmeal is also creamy in omega-3 fatty acids. The soluble fibre present in the oatmeal help to lower cholesterol level in the blood. Its act as a sponge in the digestive tract and soak up the cholesterol. It also has other essential minerals like magnesium, potassium and iron.
You can also try fat-free oatmeal cookies, oat bread, or mix whole rolled oats. For this reason, oatmeal is regarded as one of Heart Healthy diet.
Berries
Berries like blueberries, blackberries and raspberries are suitable for your Heart healthy diet, along with the rest of your body. Berries are bloated with antioxidants like anthocyanins, which protect against the oxidative stress and inflammation that contribute to the healthy heart.
Blueberries are packed with essential nutrients that are part of Heart healthy diet, including beta-carotene and carotenoids, ellagic acid, vitamin C, folate, calcium, magnesium, potassium, and fibre which improve the function of the cells that lined the blood vessels. It also balm to control blood pressure and blood clotting. So it’s essential to have berries in your Heart healthy diet.
Dark chocolate
Dark chocolate can be included in your Heart healthy diet because it contains antioxidants like flavonoids, which can help boost heart health and can also lower the blood pressure.
Dark chocolate is made up of at least 60-70% of coca which could reduce nonfatal heart attacks and stroke in people at huge risk of these problems. It is also said that eating chocolate at least twice five times per week had a 57% lower risk of coronary artery disease than non-chocolate eaters.
But make sure you pick a bar of high-quality dark chocolate with a cocoa content of at least 70% in your Heart Healthy diet.
Tomatoes
Tomatoes are a versatile Heart Healthy diet with beta-and alpha-carotene, lycopene, lutein, vitamin c, potassium, folate, fibre with powerful antioxidant properties. The antioxidant in tomatoes helps to neutralize harmful free radicals, preventing oxidative damage and inflammation, both of which can contribute to coronary artery disease.
Raw tomatoes can be added to sandwiches, burger or salads. So eating fresh tomatoes four times per week increased levels of HDL cholesterol which is also known as good cholesterol. Good cholesterol can help to remove excess cholesterol and atheromatous plaque from the coronary arteries to keep your heart healthy.
Walnuts
Walnuts are the bulky source of fibre and micronutrients like magnesium, copper and manganese, which is good for your heart. Nuts also contain Vitamin E, which help to lower bad cholesterol. And some walnuts are high in a type of plant-based omega-3 fatty acid called alpha-linolenic acid, which improves the circulations. This is the reason you must add walnuts as your Heart Healthy diet.
Regularly eating nuts such as walnut, almonds, pistachios, peanuts and macadamia nuts is associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular diseases.
Green Tea
Green tea is eminent in polyphenols and catechins, which can help nurture the health of your blood vessels and may hold blood clots from forming. It also contains antioxidant properties which help to prevent cell damage, reduce inflammation and protect the health of your skin and heart.
According to little research, it is said that taking green tea extract for three months reduces blood pressure, triglycerides, LDL and total cholesterol, correlated to a placebo. So it is essential to include green tea in your Heart Healthy diet.
Olive oil
Olive oil is packed with antioxidants which reduces the risk of heart attacks, strokes, and can relieve inflammation. It is a good source of monounsaturated fatty acid, which can help reduce both cholesterol and blood sugar levels.
Furthermore, a greater intake of olive oil was lumped with a 48% lower risk of dying from heart disease and lower the blood pressure. You must take advantages of olive oil by adding it to your Heart Healthy diet.
Avocado
Avocado, known as soft, tasty fruits, is well established with monounsaturated fatty acids which have been associated with reduced levels of cholesterol. They are also rich in antioxidants and potassium.
People who regularly eat avocado likely to reduce metabolic syndrome by 50%. Avocado is rich in potassium, which supplies 975 milligrams of potassium from a single avocado, or about 28% of the jillion that you need in a day. So It better to add one avocado daily on your Heart Healthy diet.
Leafy green vegetables
For your Heart healthy diet, you must add spinach, kale, broccoli in your food routine. These leafy vegetables pack Heart Healthy punch with beta-carotene, vitamins C and E, potassium, folate, calcium, and fibre. These essential nutrients help to protect your arteries and promote blood clotting.
They are also rich in dietary nitrates, which have been shown to bankrupt blood pressure, decrease arterial stiffness and ameliorate the function of cells lining the blood vessels. The study has shown that increasing leafy green vegetables, including spinach intake, was associated with up to a 16% lower incidence of coronary artery disease. So leafy vegetable is one of the most significant sources for the Heart Healthy diet.
End of the line
A healthy diet can be useful for your heart as well as your waistline. You can reduce your risk of developing cardiovascular diseases by following this Heart Healthy diet or cardiac diet. Try to eat foods that are in natural form because Heart Healthy diets have lots of vegetables, fruits, nuts, beans, and whole grains.
It maybe is hard to change your, diet, but even small changes can lower your risk of heart attack and stroke. So try to include all these foods in your Heart Healthy diet, which can help keep your heart in good shape.
Dr Aadarsh Yadav
Dr Adarsh Yadav is a registered medical expert currently is a medical officer at the department of paediatrics at Scheer memorial Adventist hospital, kavre, Nepal. He had been a very well trained medical practitioner, and apart from his medical practice, he had been a member of different health camps organizing blood donation camps in Bangladesh just during his internship.
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