March 29, 2024

How to: Love your heart

Heart disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women in the United States. The good news is, however, that many of these deaths and risk factors are preventable.

While age, gender and family history cannot be controlled, you can prevent and control elevated cholesterol and other lipids, high blood pressure, excess weight and obesity with lifestyle changes, healthful eating and medications.

Don’t forget to give your heart some special treatment. In honor of American Heart Month, why not begin with making some healthy eating changes with a focus on reducing sodium intake?

You are, more than likely, getting more sodium than what your body needs or what is good for your heart.

In some people, sodium increases blood pressure because it holds excess fluid in the body, creating an added burden for your heart.

Blood pressure tends to rise with age, and eating less salt/sodium now can help to decrease that rise and reduce your risk of developing other conditions associated with too much sodium, such as stroke, heart failure, osteoporosis, stomach cancer and kidney disease.

What are the recommendations?

The average American consumes about 3400 mg of sodium per day. The 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend reducing sodium in take to less than 2300 mg, and to 1500 mg per day among persons who are 51 and older and those of any age who are African American or have hypertension, diabetes or chronic kidney disease. The American Heart Association recommends keeping sodium intake at 1500 mg or less per day.

What can you do?

• Check nutrition labels on prepared and packaged foods, as up to 75 percent of the sodium consumed is hidden in processed foods.

• Be aware of other words such as “soda” and “sodium,” which means sodium compounds are present.

• Consider trying “cheese-less” pizza with grilled chicken strips and lots of vegetables.

• Use fresh, skinless poultry that isn’t enhanced with a sodium solution instead of fried or processed chicken.

• Try choosing lower sodium varieties of soup. Make your sandwiches with lower sodium meats and low fat, low sodium cheeses.

• Try to limit the condiments added.

• Choose foods that are natural sources of potassium, such as colorful fruits and vegetables, fat-free or low fat milk and milk products and fish to help counter the effects of sodium.

• Blood pressure may be lowered by including potassium-rich foods in your diet regularly.

• Specific potassium-rich foods include: potatoes, spinach and other greens, mushrooms, tomatoes, citrus fruits, prunes, apricots, raisins, dates, skim and 1% milk, fat-free yogurt, halibut, tuna and molasses.

• Experiment with different herbs and spices.

• Be sure to check label to make sure that salt or sodium has not been added.

• Track your sodium intake with a sodium tracker that you can download/print from www.heart.org/sodium.

It’s an easy way to keep tabs on how much sodium you’re consuming in your diet. Sometimes just a small change can bring big results when it comes to your heart health.

The American Heart Association has many resources available to help keep you on track.

For more information, visit www.heart.org.