Are you a mindless eater while sitting in front of your computer or television screen.
You know you should have breakfast, but instead, you run out the door and end up at your favorite coffee shop for a super-sized coffee latte loaded with sugar.
Have you ever wondered what role eating habits play in heart health?
Listen today to Dr. Lynda Otalvaro as she discusses the cardiac diet and its benefits for your heart.
Selected Podcast
Delivering the Best Heart Care Close to Home
Featured Speaker:
Lynda Otalvaro, MD
Dr. Lynda Otalvaro is a Cardiologist with Manchester Cardiology Clinic. She was born and raised in Columbia, and is the first physician of her family. She was an active player on her home town water polo team, which achieved entry to the national games during her tenure. Dr. Otalvaro believes that prevention is the key to living a long and healthy life. Transcription:
Delivering the Best Heart Care Close to Home
Melanie Cole (Host): Have you ever wondered what role eating habits play in your heart health? My guest today is Dr. Lynda Otalvaro. She’s a cardiologist with Manchester Cardiology Clinic. Welcome to the show, Dr. Otalvaro. Tell us, what are we doing to ourselves that is contributing to heart disease?
Dr. Lynda Otalvaro: Thank you very much for the invitation. So, nowadays is the diet is increased with processed food. So, we are eating too much cookies, too much potato chips, pasta, crackers, French fries and a lot of food with a high content of sugar and bad fat. If we include not doing much exercise and smoking, we are increasing the risk of having cardiovascular disease.
Melanie: As a nation, we eat so much sodium and sugar. How do these contribute to heart disease? What are they doing to our blood pressure and our overall heart health?
Dr. Otalvaro: Yes. So, a diet with a high content of sodium, which is salt, increases volume in our body which is going to increase the blood pressure. At the end, patients will become hypertension, which is a disease that increases the risk of having heart attacks, strokes, atrial fibrillation and diseases like heart failure. So, just increasing the salt in our diet, we are increasing the risk of having a very dangerous and deadly disease.
Melanie: When you take our blood to give us a check-up every year and you’re looking at our blood levels of cholesterol and CRP and homocysteine, what are you looking for, Dr. Otalvaro, that would tell us that maybe our diets are contributing to heart problems?
Dr. Otalvaro: Okay. That’s a great question. So, when I check cholesterol, there are different cholesterols. We have bad cholesterol. We have triglycerides and we have a good cholesterol. With the bad cholesterol, I will if you are eating too much fried food, too much sugars that will increase your triglycerides. For example, if you are a person who smokes and has a sedentary lifestyle—just sitting on the couch watching TV—you will probably have good cholesterol that will be low and the good cholesterol is low if you don’t eat fish or vegetables. Other things that increase this cholesterol is avocado, for example, or nuts. So, in the diet, just with the test, I can figure out what’s the diet. Also, with the CRP, if I check this level, if it’s too high, it’s a predictor of cardiovascular diseases and pro-heart attacks in a period of time, in 10 years. So, if the patient comes and we do some testing and the patient is having some symptoms, we can catch the patient earlier.
Melanie: So, let’s talk about fats. You were mentioning cholesterol. So, what are some good, healthy fats? You mentioned avocado and fish. What else should we be eating that are good, healthy fats that may even help us prevent heart disease?
Dr. Otalvaro: Yes. So, one of the good things is, I mean, we are in a health environment. If we go outside, we have a lot of green. We have the possibility of having vegetables from our own garden. So, any kind of vegetables, fruits, nuts, grains. If we increase the content of fish which has Omega 3, we don’t need to take Omega 3, which is a huge pill, and that will contribute to health. Other things that we can add is, for example, yogurt instead of whole grain milk or decrease other kinds of food that has a lot of sugar and fat. Other things that we can eat, for example, can be eggplant, zucchini, spinach, mushrooms, olives, apples, grapes and all kinds of things that are in nature.
Melanie: So, a good plant-based diet is really what you’re recommending. What about exercise? Where does that fit in?
Dr. Otalvaro: Yes, exercise is key. It’s very important. Having a sedentary lifestyle we know increases cardiovascular disease. So, we are recommending, according to the ACC guidelines, to do a physical activity every day. We used to tell patients to do it 3 times a week. Now, it’s every day at least 30 minutes of brisk walk. Having an active job, for example, sometimes patients say they are very active in their jobs but that doesn’t mean that they are physically active. That means that they have a job with a lot of stress and they’re active. What we need is the patient to go outside, enjoy the park, go with adequate shoes and clothing and then decrease stress and go do their walking which should increase intensity with time according to the patient’s regular physical activity and capacity.
Melanie: If we’re trying to eat healthier and we’re cooking with fats and solid fats and now that trans fats are disappearing from our diet, what do you tell your patients about the proper way and the best way to cook their foods?
Dr. Otalvaro: Yes, I’m noticing that my patients are cooking with grease and I usually tell them to hold on this practice and probably to use other kinds of oil. The first thing is, please don’t fry food but if you do it, do it with probably canola oil. But, whatever you do, if you fry the food, any goo oil will lose the good components and the components we want to protect our hearts. So, I usually tell them, for example, try grilled food and if, for example, with salads, I usually tell them to not put so much dressing because dressing has salt and sometimes sugar and all the benefits of the salad, we are decreasing with the dressing. So, I usually tell them to do the olive oil with the salad and do not use salt but use pepper or lime or lemon instead of other components to get the healthiest diet.
Melanie: That’s great advice. What about cutting down on sugar? We see so many people drinking soda and sugary beverages. What do you tell your patients about those?
Dr. Otalvaro: That’s an excellent question. I usually ask what kind of hydration they have and they usually tell me they drink pop. So, that’s new to me. They drink like 10 pops a day and that certainly is not a good way to hydrate our bodies. So, I usually tell them to cut down or quit sodas and to hydrate themselves with water. That’s better or any beverage that the component of sugar is very low, close to zero.
Melanie: In just the last minute, Dr. Otalvaro, give your best advice for the role that our eating habits play in preventing heart disease.
Dr. Otalvaro: Yes. My best advice is what we eat is what’s going to determine our cardiovascular health. So, everything depends on us. So, if we are conscious about all these issues of food, if we try our best to eat healthy and stop processed food and fried food and fast food and spend more time with our families and eating healthier, we’re going to have a healthier life and probably live longer.
Melanie: Thank you so much. It’s such great information. You’re listening to The Manchester Difference with Manchester Memorial. For more information, you can go to ManchesterMemorial.org. That’s ManchesterMemorial.org. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening.
Delivering the Best Heart Care Close to Home
Melanie Cole (Host): Have you ever wondered what role eating habits play in your heart health? My guest today is Dr. Lynda Otalvaro. She’s a cardiologist with Manchester Cardiology Clinic. Welcome to the show, Dr. Otalvaro. Tell us, what are we doing to ourselves that is contributing to heart disease?
Dr. Lynda Otalvaro: Thank you very much for the invitation. So, nowadays is the diet is increased with processed food. So, we are eating too much cookies, too much potato chips, pasta, crackers, French fries and a lot of food with a high content of sugar and bad fat. If we include not doing much exercise and smoking, we are increasing the risk of having cardiovascular disease.
Melanie: As a nation, we eat so much sodium and sugar. How do these contribute to heart disease? What are they doing to our blood pressure and our overall heart health?
Dr. Otalvaro: Yes. So, a diet with a high content of sodium, which is salt, increases volume in our body which is going to increase the blood pressure. At the end, patients will become hypertension, which is a disease that increases the risk of having heart attacks, strokes, atrial fibrillation and diseases like heart failure. So, just increasing the salt in our diet, we are increasing the risk of having a very dangerous and deadly disease.
Melanie: When you take our blood to give us a check-up every year and you’re looking at our blood levels of cholesterol and CRP and homocysteine, what are you looking for, Dr. Otalvaro, that would tell us that maybe our diets are contributing to heart problems?
Dr. Otalvaro: Okay. That’s a great question. So, when I check cholesterol, there are different cholesterols. We have bad cholesterol. We have triglycerides and we have a good cholesterol. With the bad cholesterol, I will if you are eating too much fried food, too much sugars that will increase your triglycerides. For example, if you are a person who smokes and has a sedentary lifestyle—just sitting on the couch watching TV—you will probably have good cholesterol that will be low and the good cholesterol is low if you don’t eat fish or vegetables. Other things that increase this cholesterol is avocado, for example, or nuts. So, in the diet, just with the test, I can figure out what’s the diet. Also, with the CRP, if I check this level, if it’s too high, it’s a predictor of cardiovascular diseases and pro-heart attacks in a period of time, in 10 years. So, if the patient comes and we do some testing and the patient is having some symptoms, we can catch the patient earlier.
Melanie: So, let’s talk about fats. You were mentioning cholesterol. So, what are some good, healthy fats? You mentioned avocado and fish. What else should we be eating that are good, healthy fats that may even help us prevent heart disease?
Dr. Otalvaro: Yes. So, one of the good things is, I mean, we are in a health environment. If we go outside, we have a lot of green. We have the possibility of having vegetables from our own garden. So, any kind of vegetables, fruits, nuts, grains. If we increase the content of fish which has Omega 3, we don’t need to take Omega 3, which is a huge pill, and that will contribute to health. Other things that we can add is, for example, yogurt instead of whole grain milk or decrease other kinds of food that has a lot of sugar and fat. Other things that we can eat, for example, can be eggplant, zucchini, spinach, mushrooms, olives, apples, grapes and all kinds of things that are in nature.
Melanie: So, a good plant-based diet is really what you’re recommending. What about exercise? Where does that fit in?
Dr. Otalvaro: Yes, exercise is key. It’s very important. Having a sedentary lifestyle we know increases cardiovascular disease. So, we are recommending, according to the ACC guidelines, to do a physical activity every day. We used to tell patients to do it 3 times a week. Now, it’s every day at least 30 minutes of brisk walk. Having an active job, for example, sometimes patients say they are very active in their jobs but that doesn’t mean that they are physically active. That means that they have a job with a lot of stress and they’re active. What we need is the patient to go outside, enjoy the park, go with adequate shoes and clothing and then decrease stress and go do their walking which should increase intensity with time according to the patient’s regular physical activity and capacity.
Melanie: If we’re trying to eat healthier and we’re cooking with fats and solid fats and now that trans fats are disappearing from our diet, what do you tell your patients about the proper way and the best way to cook their foods?
Dr. Otalvaro: Yes, I’m noticing that my patients are cooking with grease and I usually tell them to hold on this practice and probably to use other kinds of oil. The first thing is, please don’t fry food but if you do it, do it with probably canola oil. But, whatever you do, if you fry the food, any goo oil will lose the good components and the components we want to protect our hearts. So, I usually tell them, for example, try grilled food and if, for example, with salads, I usually tell them to not put so much dressing because dressing has salt and sometimes sugar and all the benefits of the salad, we are decreasing with the dressing. So, I usually tell them to do the olive oil with the salad and do not use salt but use pepper or lime or lemon instead of other components to get the healthiest diet.
Melanie: That’s great advice. What about cutting down on sugar? We see so many people drinking soda and sugary beverages. What do you tell your patients about those?
Dr. Otalvaro: That’s an excellent question. I usually ask what kind of hydration they have and they usually tell me they drink pop. So, that’s new to me. They drink like 10 pops a day and that certainly is not a good way to hydrate our bodies. So, I usually tell them to cut down or quit sodas and to hydrate themselves with water. That’s better or any beverage that the component of sugar is very low, close to zero.
Melanie: In just the last minute, Dr. Otalvaro, give your best advice for the role that our eating habits play in preventing heart disease.
Dr. Otalvaro: Yes. My best advice is what we eat is what’s going to determine our cardiovascular health. So, everything depends on us. So, if we are conscious about all these issues of food, if we try our best to eat healthy and stop processed food and fried food and fast food and spend more time with our families and eating healthier, we’re going to have a healthier life and probably live longer.
Melanie: Thank you so much. It’s such great information. You’re listening to The Manchester Difference with Manchester Memorial. For more information, you can go to ManchesterMemorial.org. That’s ManchesterMemorial.org. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening.