[리더스 다이제스트] 당신이 바꿀 수 있는 심장 질환 요소 1

Heart Disease Risk Factors You Can Change


In Your Hands

More than anything else, how you live your life determines your likelihood of developing coronary heart disease (CHD).

Even if you have risk factors you can't do a thing about, making changes to your lifestyle can go a long way toward ensuring you don't ever suffer a heart attack or other so-called coronary event.

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Smoking contributes greatly to your risk of heart disease. Cut it out before it's too late.

Smoking
Smoking accounts for about one in five deaths from cardiovascular disease. Women who smoke are two to six times more likely to suffer a heart attack than those who don't. The risk increases with the number of cigarettes smoked each day. But if you quit, within one year your CHD risk plummets 50 percent; within 15 years your relative risk of dying from CHD approaches that of a lifetime nonsmoker.

About 70 percent of smokers say they want to quit. If you're one of them, talk to your doctor about stop-smoking strategies. In addition to providing the kind moral and medical support you'll need, your doctor can prescribe medications shown to help smokers break the habit.

How does smoking affect your heart disease risk? It lowers beneficial HDL (high-density lipoprotein) and damages the blood vessels, making them less elastic (thereby reducing blood flow and causing high blood pressure) and turning them into virtual Velcro, so that gunk (like fatty deposits) is more likely to stick to them. Smoking also reduces oxygen levels in the blood, which further irritates vessel walls.

Smoking may also contribute to insulin resistance and the cascade of events that leads to metabolic syndrome. When researchers at Stanford University had 20 smokers and 20 nonsmokers drink a sweet solution, they found that while glucose levels of both remained about the same, the smokers had much higher levels of insulin, a sign of insulin resistance. Also, while total cholesterol levels were the same in both groups, VLDL (very low-density lipoprotein) was higher and HDL lower in smokers.

Unless your cholesterol is off the charts, quitting smoking may be even more important than fixing the cholesterol problem. Research has shown that male smokers with low cholesterol have a substantially higher risk of death than nonsmokers with high cholesterol. Of course, doing both is best.

Lack of Exercise
Could our lives be any easier? We have clickers to change the channel, increase the stereo volume, even turn lights on and off. We can drive through for hamburgers, dry cleaning, and doughnuts. We can hire someone to clean the house, cut the grass, and walk the dog. Is it any wonder that one in four Americans are not physically active at all? Or that more than 6 in 10 don't get enough exercise to do any good for their health?

While lack of exercise is bad for the whole body (and the mind), it's particularly bad for the heart. If you're sedentary, you're almost twice as likely to suffer a heart attack as someone who exercises regularly. Exercise increases HDL, reduces LDL (low-density lipoprotein), improves insulin sensitivity, and lowers blood pressure. It also helps to control your weight and keep your heart in shape. If you do have high cholesterol or other CHD risk factors, exercise can help nullify some of those risks by creating healthier, stronger blood vessels -- in some instances, even new blood vessels for blood to flow through.

If you're living the couch potato life, your body is storing calories as fat instead of burning them, which leads to high triglycerides and LDL. In fact, lack of exercise is so dangerous for your heart that some experts think a history of no regular physical activity should count as a risk factor for heart disease -- one just as dangerous as high LDL.

You don't have to do much to make a difference; just 20 minutes of brisk walking per day will help your body burn calories instead of storing them as fat.


출처 : http://www.rd.com/living-healthy/cut-your-heart-disease-risk/article16042.html




단어 모음

plummet   [자동사][V] 곤두박질치다, 급락하다

nullify   [동사] 1. (합의,명령 등을) 무효화하다  2. 효력 없게[무가치하게/무효로] 만들다

brisk   [형용사] 1.빠른; 바쁜  2.사람,태도가 딱딱한, 사무적인  3.바람,날씨가(차갑지만) 상쾌한 

리뷰

어떻게 하느냐에 따라 관상동맥 질환을 예방할 수 있다!

담배를 피우면 좋은 콜레스테롤인 HDL을 낮추고 혈관을 망가뜨리고 혈류를 줄이고 고혈압을 유발한다. 그리고 지방이 더 달라붙기 쉽다. 인슐린 저항성에도 관계가 있고 대사증후군의 연속적인 사건을 일으킨다. 스탠포드 대학에서 스무 명의 흡연자와 스무 명의 비흡연자가 각각 단 용액을 먹고나서 보니 흡연자가 더 높았고, 인슐린 저항성을 보였다. 또한 전체 콜레스테롤은 양 그룹이 같은 반면에 흡연자들에서 VLDL이 HDL보다 높았다.

미국인 중 4분의 1은 육체적인 활동을 전혀 하지 않는다고 하니 놀랍다. 그리고 운동을 하지 않는 것은 특히 심장에 좋지 않은데, 운동을 하지 않는 사람은 정규적으로 하는사람보다 심장질환을 겪을 확률이 2배나 된다.

Couch potato로 산다면, 지방을 태우는 대신에 칼로리를 저장하게 되는데, 이것은 트리글리세라이드와 LDL를 높도록 유도한다.

결론은 담배 피우지 말고, 운동해야 심장에 좋다는 이야기다. 하루에 20분씩 빠르게 걸으시길.