Improving Your Heart Health

Reduce Cardiovascular Risk

Your heart health is very important. Sodium, saturated fat, and sugar cause serious heart ailments, including death. Eating a healthier diet is proven to reduce this risk, even restoring your heart from heart disease and cardiac damage. 

Too Much Sodium Increases Blood Pressure

Sodium is both good and bad for the body. Sodium helps with nerve and muscle function and helps to balance the fluids in your body (Medline Plus). 90% of Americans consume too much sodium which increases blood pressure (blood pressure related deaths are around 500,000 annually) and puts people at risk for heart attacks and strokes (CDC). Too much sodium will attract an excess of water into your bloodstream, increasing the blood volume (high blood pressure), and is not always associated with salt, it can be tasteless which is why it is very important to check the labels (FDA). 

I had no idea sodium was good for the body. I always thought it was bad and associated with high blood pressure.

Saturated Fat Raises Your Cholesterol

Saturated fat puts you at risk for heart disease and stroke because too much raises your LDL cholesterol (American Heart Association). Changing your diet and exercise are key to lowering your cholesterol. Maybe substitute foods high in saturated fats, like meat, with foods high in good healthy fats like fish. Artichokes and walnuts are both natural foods that significantly lower LDL cholesterol. Walnuts contain zero sodium as well. 

Cholesterol is good and necessary for your body to perform neurological functions, produce vitamin D, essential for cells, digest fats, and produce hormones.

Sugar Increases Risk of Death from Cardiovascular Disease

Sugar is known for its association with weight gain and obesity; however, a 15-year study was conducted, and it was discovered the people who consumed more added sugar in their diet were 38% more at risk of dying from cardiovascular disease (Harvard Health Publishing). 

Plant-Based Diet Reduces Heart Attack Risk

I'm a big fan of healthy eating instead of eating a strict healthy diet. However, a study was conducted with a plant-based diet, and after just 5 weeks, a 20% reduction for a heart attack in African Americans at risk for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease was discovered. I imagine this diet would reduce your risk for cardiovascular disease for all races and a lot better for your health than an unhealthy diet rich in sugar, sodium, and saturated fat. 

Modified Citrus Pectin Reverses Heart Disease

Modified citrus pectin is proven to slow heart disease and actually reverse it. It tackles a major molecule, galectin-3, that has a significant role in heart disease. Also proven to restore cardiac function after damage, decrease injured areas of the heart, and repair the hearts collagen. 

Conclusion

Sugar, sodium, and saturated fats should be significantly lowered from your diet. Consuming all three of them together in high amounts, which is the norm of the western diet, puts you at an even higher risk of dying from cardiovascular disease. 

Works Cited 

CDC. “Sodium.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 9 Dec. 2019, www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/sodium.htm.

FDA. “Sodium in Your Diet.” FDA, 2 Apr. 2020, www.fda.gov/food/nutrition-education-resources-materials/sodium-your-diet.

Medline Plus. “Sodium.” Medlineplus.gov, National Library of Medicine, 2019, medlineplus.gov/sodium.html.

American Heart Association. “Saturated Fat.” Www.heart.org, 1 Nov. 2021, www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-eating/eat-smart/fats/saturated-fats.

Harvard Health Publishing. “The Sweet Danger of Sugar - Harvard Health.” Harvard Health, Harvard Health, 6 Jan. 2022, www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/the-sweet-danger-of-sugar.