Activity and Heart Health
You can give your heart a great gift by taking part in physical activity. Johns Hopkins research suggests that staying active, eating a Mediterranean-style diet, maintaining a normal weight, and quitting smoking should be part of a healthy lifestyle to avoid coronary artery disease and vascular disease. Not sure how effective simple measures can be? Over the eight years when more than 6,200 participants were followed, these four lifestyle characteristics significantly decreased the likelihood of dying from any cause by 80%. Understanding how exercise benefits the heart can be a powerful incentive to exercise and move more. Here's what you should know: 1. Exercise lowers blood pressure. Exercise, like beta-blockers, can lower blood pressure and slow heart rate. The main risk factor for heart disease is high blood pressure. 2. The secret to weight management is exercise. Physical activity, which improves heart health, is important for weight loss, and even more so for maintaining i...