Heart Healthy Food

The Food Effect

What you eat can make a difference to your heart health. Keep your heart healthy by maintaining a diet rich in fresh fruits and vegetables, but low in saturated fats and simple carbohydrates. Additionally, following a regular exercise program, not smoking, getting sufficient periods of rest at night and reducing stress have all been shown to have a positive effect on heart health.

Diet Matters

Load up on fruits and vegetables. Heart healthy foods such as fruits, vegetables and whole grain are all sources of antioxidants combinations that have been clinically proven.

Stock up on nutritious foods and replace foods that are high in fat, sugar, salt and preservatives with healthier versions to maintain a healthy diet and protect your heart.

Diets made up of heart healthy foods, including soy, garlic, grapes, red wine and tea have been shown to reduce LDL cholesterol. Taking a supplement with plant sterols and stanols has also been shown to effectively reduce LDL cholesterol levels.

Antioxidant Power

Studies have discovered that the more dietary antioxidants a person consumes, the lower the rate of heart disease.

Antioxidants protect our cells from the damage that can be caused by free radicals. Free radicals are “unstable” molecules that “attack” our healthy cells in order to stabilize.

Free radicals come from many things in our environment such as stress, toxins, even the oxygen from the air we breathe. Free-radical damage to our cells can affect many things, including our heart health.

The Benefits of Fiber

A recent study published in the January 2nd issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology found that females aged 45 and older who ate the most fiber--about 26 grams daily--were less likely to develop heart disease and suffer a heart attack than women with the lowest fiber intake, about 18 grams a day over a six year period. The study involved more than 38,000 female health professionals. These findings support recommendations that 25 to 35 grams per day of dietary fiber may provide a primary preventive effect against heart disease. Effects of soluble and insoluble fiber were similar.