If you are a woman under the age of 50, in pretty good physical shape, you may believe that you have nothing to worry about regarding your heart. However, you’d be wrong. The truth is that heart disease in women is on the rise. Once a woman turns 35, the risk of heart disease rises drastically, to the point that heart disease is the leading cause of death for women of this age group. Around 35,000 women that are younger than age 50 die each year of heart attacks. Most women post age 35 do not realize that they are risk for heart disease, believing it only to be a disease that primarily affects men and older women.
If you are a woman over age 35, the first thing you should do is check to see if you have any risk factors that would cause a heart attack or other heart problems. Major risk factors include a family history of heart disease, high cholesterol, being overweight, having diabetes during pregnancy, high blood pressure, previous heart attacks, age and being a smoker. If you have determined that you fall into one of
these categories, then you need to develop a prevention plan. Most prevention plans involve changes in diet, weight loss, increased exercise and possibly medication.
If you are looking for a way to modify your diet, here are a few
tips.
Try to stay away from prepared and frozen foods – preparing food from
scratch is healthier than a highly processed meal filled with preservatives. Add plenty of fiber and vegetables to your diet, and consider eating lean proteins like chicken and fish instead of red meat.
If you are looking for a specific diet plan, consider the Mediterranean diet. The Mediterranean diet is a food plan based on countries in the Mediterranean Basin, focusing on places like Italy, Greece and Crete. This diet is thought to be beneficial as it is high in monounsaturated fat (“good fat”) and fiber, as well as being low in saturated fat (“bad fat”). A person on this diet should eat plenty of fruits and vegetables along with low to moderate amounts of dairy products, fish, chicken and wine. The main source of fat should come from olive oil, and eggs and red meat should be eaten rarely if not completely cut out of the diet.
Many believe that the reason why the Mediterranean diet is successful is due to the use of olive oil. Olive oil tastes good, is very nutritious and has a high level of monounsaturated fats, which may help reduce heart disease and regulate cholesterol.
About the Author
Valery Fortie is the author of Mediterraneanbook.com. A non
commercial blog focused on Mediterranean eating habits to help people understand the factors of high blood pressure to live longer and better.
Mediterraneanbook.com is a non commercial website created to preserve
the Italian Healthy Eating Traditions. Founded in 2004 in Italy,
Mediterraneanbook.com feels very strongly about having informed
consumers on duty in all healthy eating fields.
