People often say, 30-year-old body, 60-year-old heart, although a little exaggerated, but not unfounded. Due to unreasonable diet and rest, lack of exercise and other reasons, many people “not old heart failure”. According to recent data released by the National Cardiovascular Center, China has more than 300 million patients with cardiovascular disease, of which hypertension is the most common, reaching 245 million.
Here is a very simple way to help you calculate your “heart age”.
Factors that are not good for the heart: high blood pressure (+5 years); smoking (+4 years); family history of heart disease (+1 year); being male (+3 years); liking to stay up late (+4 years); being heavy (+2 years); loving meat (+3 years); being sedentary (+4 years); being obese (+4 years).
Factors favorable to the heart: resting heart rate <75 beats/min (-2 years); calm and not impatient (-3 years); love of nuts (-2 years); 30 minutes of exercise per day (-5 years).
How about it, is your heart a lot older? Don’t be nervous, it’s just a little game. In fact, prevention is the best cure. It is now widely accepted in the scientific community that an irrational diet is the biggest cause of cardiovascular disease, so what and how to eat is best for your heart?
There are many studies that have found that the Mediterranean diet can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. It is not that you should adopt a Mediterranean diet. The Mediterranean diet is characterized by an abundance of fruits and vegetables, fish, dairy products, nuts, and olive oil and red wine, and less refined grains, fried foods, sugar and desserts, and sugary drinks.
In conjunction with the Chinese dietary guidelines, here are the “healthy foods” you need to focus on
- Whole grains, potatoes and mixed beans (excluding soybeans). These are the foundation of the Chinese dietary pagoda, or staple foods. They contain more dietary fiber and vitamins, minerals, compared to refined rice and flour is much better, satiety, slow rise in sugar, laxative.
- Fresh fruits and vegetables. Especially dark-colored vegetables (red, yellow, purple, dark green), apples, oranges, kiwis, strawberries and other fruits with high nutrient density. Note that potatoes are not considered vegetables, more like a staple food.
- Aquatic products. On average, Chinese people eat less aquatic products, probably related to the price and geography. Freshwater fish and sea fish can be, rich in oil fish is actually healthier, especially rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids.
- dairy products, soybean products (mainly refers to soy). For Chinese people, whether milk, yogurt, cheese can be, but try not to drink sweetened dairy drinks. In addition, there is no need to pursue the “plant milk”, rather than drink soy milk and eat tofu, cheap and sufficient.
- nuts. A small handful of nuts every day (the best original flavor) is good for health, although the nut fat, but unsaturated fat, dietary fiber and minerals are rich, and a strong sense of satiety. Of course, a big pile of melon peanuts would be very unhealthy.
In addition, the Mediterranean region to eat olive oil is locally sourced, olive oil is nothing but high oleic acid content, domestic also has high oleic acid peanut oil, canola oil, tea oil and other varieties. The most important thing to eat oil is to control the amount, not what oil to eat. Carefully selected blended oil and soybean oil, vegetable oil and other single varieties of oil is not essentially different; “red wine is good for your health” is when the wine merchants “compelling” concept, including resveratrol and other gimmicks do not take it seriously. Drinking alcohol hurts the body, no matter how much, drink less only the harm is not obvious.
In addition to the above, exercise is also very important to heart health, especially above moderate intensity exercise, can be a good way to promote cardiorespiratory function. The doctor’s recommendation is 30 minutes of exercise every day, if you usually do not exercise, it is recommended to do so gradually and according to your ability.
