To avoid a heart attack, the most effective approach is to adopt a heart- healthy lifestyle through a combination of dietary, exercise, and behavioral changes. Key ways to prevent a heart attack include:
- Eating a healthy, balanced diet: Choose a Mediterranean-style diet rich in whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and fish, while avoiding saturated fats, trans fats, and excessive salt and sugar intake. This helps reduce bad cholesterol (LDL) and maintain healthy blood pressure.
- Not smoking: Tobacco harms the heart and blood vessels and increases the risk of heart attack significantly. Quitting smoking starts to reduce risk almost immediately.
- Staying physically active: Aim for at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic exercise or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise weekly, plus strength training. Regular activity helps control weight and reduces risk factors like high blood pressure and cholesterol.
- Maintaining a healthy weight: Excess weight, especially around the waist, raises risk by affecting blood pressure, cholesterol, and diabetes risk. Losing even a small percentage of weight can help.
- Managing medical conditions: Control blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar levels with lifestyle changes and medications if prescribed by a doctor.
- Limiting alcohol consumption and getting enough sleep also contribute positively.
In summary, adopting a heart-healthy diet, quitting smoking, regular physical activity, maintaining a healthy weight, and managing health conditions are essential to significantly lowering the risk of a heart attack.
