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Keeping Your Heart Healthy – The Importance of Blood Pressure Screenings

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While February may be best known for Valentine’s Day, it’s also American Heart Month. This is a period geared towards spreading awareness of cardiovascular disease, and encouraging your family and friends to be proactive in monitoring their heart health. One of the best ways to do that is getting a heart health screening.

There are many screenings available – Fasting Lipoprotein Profile (cholesterol), Body Weight, Blood Glucose, Smoking/Physical Activity/Diet – but chief among them may be the blood pressure screening. According to the American Heart Association, this is one of the most important screenings because there are typically no symptoms for high blood pressure (HBP). If you have HBP you are at a much higher risk of:

  • Heart failure
  • Heart attack
  • Stroke
  • Chronic kidney disease

It’s important to check your blood pressure regularly, especially if it’s outside the range of 120/80 mm Hg. If so, it’s recommended you get this screening at least every two years. While your blood pressure levels may be affected by short-term factors such as emotion, stress, pain, and caffeine use, there are many other risk factors that can contribute to the rise of HBP:

  • Age
  • Race
  • Family History
  • Obesity
  • Tobacco Use
  • Low levels of Potassium/Vitamin D

While there may be many risk factors, the CDC believes there are many things you can do to take control of your blood pressure, and most importantly, developing healthy habits.

  1. Healthy Diet – A balanced diet, individualized for your health needs, can be crafted by your R-Health doctor.
  2. Maintain a Healthy Weight – Additionally, your R-Health doctor can work with you to determine a healthy weight range.
  3. Physical Activity – Physical activities not only help maintain healthy weight, but keep your heart active and healthy.
  4. Do Not Smoke
  5. Limited Alcohol Use

Though there are healthy habits to follow, and risks factors that may increase chances, the best first step is to get a blood pressure screening. With no true signs or symptoms, this screening is a vital step in preventing cardiovascular disease and a first step towards making lifestyle changes. In addition, your R-Health physician can help you decide upon individual lifestyle adjustments to keep your heart and your body healthy and happy.

Right Track to a Healthy Heart

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Cardiovascular disease, also known as heart disease, is the leading cause of death in this country. Just as there are many misnomers, there are many different views of what causes heart disease. While focusing on heart disease from a different lens in hopes of discovering the true culprit, it’s important to acknowledge that science is always being tested and retested; hence, today’s tips and insights may change over time, in the overall effort to get it right. The views below are my views and those of a growing number of physicians and healthcare professionals.

Typically, one of the first questions I often hear is, what causes heart disease?

Fat is one idea often mentioned as a cause behind heart disease, but that’s not always the case.

It is also believed that cholesterol contributes to heart disease, but that is also in doubt.

I am happy that I am not the only one saying this.

The Telegraph also discussed their extensive research in debunking cholesterol’s role in heart disease, stating “Lowering cholesterol with medications for primary cardiovascular prevention…is a total waste of time and resources.” Primary prevention is classified as preventing the first episode of an illness. So primary prevention for heart disease is preventing the first heart attack. Secondary prevention would be aimed at people who have already had a heart attack.

So what does cause heart disease? I believe it’s a lifelong energy imbalance, what you eat and what you burn, combined with how well your body safely processes and stores energy. A major part of this process has to deal with the hormone insulin. One of Insulin’s most important jobs is to store excess energy, as mostly fat, which can be used in the future when you’re low on energy (i.e. illness, fasting, exercising, etc.). The problem however lies with excess fat. Excess fat from both the fat in foods, and the carbohydrates you eat can be stored in fat cells. Interestingly the excess carbohydrates are converted to fat to be stored.

However, our body’s ability to store fat is not unlimited. When fat cells reach their storage limit, they begin to resist any more energy intake, from the likes of insulin, which lead to what we call Insulin Resistance (IR). Short term insulin resistance (IR) isn’t harmful and may even be protective for the body, however long term IR can be extremely harmful.

The following may occur if you have chronic Insulin Resistance:

Obesity
High Blood Pressure
Diabetes
Heart Disease
Dementia-Alzheimers
Fatty Liver
Many, many others but the above items account for much of what most physicians treat in their practices.

When the body deals with long term IR, this excess fat, as a result of high insulin intake, leads the fat to dangerous places in the body where it was not meant to be.

Where can this fat go?

• Retinas – Which can lead to vision issues
• Liver – Can lead to fatty liver, obesity, diabetes, and cirrhosis
• Kidneys – Can lead to reduced kidney function, which can ultimately lead to dialysis
• Skin – Can lead to skin infections, skin tags, and/or old skin
• Pancreas – Can lead to diabetes, pancreatitis
• Artery walls – Leads to heart disease

The last might be the worst of all. Excess fat in artery walls leads to plaque, which in turn can build up, thicken, and stiffen artery walls, which makes blood flow through your arteries to your organs and tissues very challenging. Unbalanced diets that increase levels of insulin, coupled with lack of exercise, and unhealthy habits like smoking, all rapidly increase your chances of heart disease.

However, the first step in prevention is to alter your diet and lifestyle to reduce insulin resistance.

How do you do this?
• Eat fewer carbs
• Eat less often (consider Intermittent Fasting) (IF)
• Exercise more (start burning your stored-up energy) – this allows for more safe energy storage.
• Sleep better with normal day-night cycle – this balances your cyclical hormones
• Reduce your stress
• Avoid cigarettes
• Keep alcohol moderate to low

If you’re interested in more ways to keep your heart safe, or any of the other disease processes that Insulin Resistance causes, and would love some counselling on how to prevent/reverse these disease process from starting or advancing, don’t hesitate to call your R-Health doctor and schedule and appointment.