Love Month - Heart Health
How can we optimize our heart health to live a healthy, happy, long life?
Ultimately, cardiovascular disease is one of our most preventable diseases and causes of death - but it takes some lifestyle shifting. In that we mean focusing on nutrition, exercise, and stress management. Although we will have different risk factors depending on our genetics and our age, it’s never too late to make some shifts.
Eating for Heart Health
The way to eat for optimal health isn’t always clearly outlined - and the research can get a bit murky - but there are some basics that have held strong.
Aim for as many whole-food, minimally processed plant-based foods as you can - we are talking vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes etc.
These whole, unprocessed plant foods have blood sugar stabilizing effects as well being cholesterol lowering. Fibre is important for keeping us full, feeding out gut microbes, bulking our poop AND helping get rid of extra cholesterol. Plants are also rich in what we call polyphenols - natural bioactive compounds that have various beneficial impacts on our health, largely though being antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects.
Supplement this with omega-3 fatty acids - so, your fatty fish and algae oils, as well as your shorter chain omega-3s found in your nuts and seeds. Unsaturated fatty acids tend to have beneficial effects on our cardiovascular risk markers. Olive oil, in particular extra virgin olive oil, appears to have an especially beneficial impact on blood lipids (cholesterol and triglycerides)
Eating fibre and healthy fats also help us maintain more stable blood sugar and insulin sensitivity. If we are more insulin resistant, this can trigger high levels of sugar in the blood leading to oxidative stress and inflammatory damage. Insulin resistance can also impact our blood lipids and alter our blood vessel lining.
Our gut microbes, as always, appear to play a role in our cardiovascular health through the compounds they produce when using our food as fuel. Variety in fibrous foods leads microbes who produce antiinflammatory compounds to flourish! More animal protein-rich diets appear to be higher in compounds that lead to more TMAO as a metabolite - leading to higher inflammation and worse cardiovascular outcomes.
Exercise for your heart
Exercise has been TIME AND TIME again shown to be beneficial for all aspects of our health. Cardiovascular health is no different. Move to get your heart rate up at least once a day - this could even be a walk! Exercise also increases receptors for sugar, making your more sensitive to insulin. Double whammy.
When it comes down to it, we try to avoid being fearful of small amounts of foods that are more high risk, and focus on ADDING the foods we know to be protective. Aim for as many unprocessed plant foods as you can - especially brightly coloured ones - exercise to get your heart rate up and work on minimizing stress. If we can do those things really well first, then we can work through the nitty gritty in the research. Most people will notice major improvements if they increase their vegetables, move their bodies more and manage their stress.