Transcription:
Reducing Your Risk Factors For Heart Disease

Melanie Cole (Host): Heart disease is the number one killer of men and women and is more deadly than all forms of cancer combined and that according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. But there are things that you can do to reduce your risk. My guest today is Melissa Trumm. She’s an exercise physiologist at Stoughton Hospital. So, Melissa, tell us a little bit about the risk factors for cardiovascular disease. What are some of those and what puts us most at risk?

Melissa Trumm (Guest): So, there are a lot of risk factors for heart disease. I would say the two biggest risk factors would be smoking. I would say that would be one. People are two times as likely to die from heart attacks and it damages the arteries leading up to the heart and the brain and can cause blood clots. It also decreases your HDL cholesterol which is the good kind.

I would say the second would be sitting too much and being sedentary and being physically inactive. Scientists think now that too much sitting impairs the body’s ability to deposit fat from the blood stream into the body. It also impairs the functioning of the body’s healthy cholesterol which is the HDL that kind of cleans up the plaques sticking to the arteries. If you can move more throughout the day, it’s necessary to lower your risk for heart disease. And just being more active would definitely prevent heart disease and just establishing an exercise program. There’s a lot of others like high blood pressure, being overweight, high cholesterol, those things; but I would say the main two if you can really focus on not smoking and establishing an exercise program.

Host: Well, as one exercise physiologist to another, that was an excellent description and certainly true. So, we also hear that cardiovascular disease is a little different in women and you and I both know when we did our studies; they did more of the studies on men than women when it comes to heart disease. What do we know now that we didn’t know then?

Melissa: Well I would say yeah, men and women they tend to have some common symptoms. They can have chest pain, chest tightness, pressure. But women are more likely to experience other symptoms that they may not recognize as being a heart condition. They may have like symptoms as they were experiencing the flu, like heaviness, vomiting, or nausea; those things may not be classic as to the typical chest tightness, pressure, jaw pain that men may feel. So, yeah, definitely just trying to recognize your symptoms so you know that it’s more of a heart condition versus maybe like stress or something else that may be going on.

Host: Well okay. I want you to talk about that because many of those signs that we know about are similar to stress and anxiety. How do we know which one it is? You get a chest pain, could be gas, could be stress. What do we do at that point Melissa? Is that when we run off to the emergency room or a cardiologist or how do we know?

Melissa: Yeah, both conditions can be very, very similar. You know the shortness of breath, the chest tightness, being sweaty, dizzy. Lots of times it’s maybe kind of thinking about like your history, if you have a cardiac condition. Sometimes if you were to have chest pain, sometimes it’s good to maybe apply pressure to the area that you are having. If you notice that the discomfort changes; it’s most likely not angina or heart pain. You can kind of change positions: if the discomfort changes, it’s most like not that heart pain.

Sometimes people are prescribed nitro glycerin, that’s kind of used to dilate the blood vessels and that can be used for a person who has a heart condition. But yeah, it’s definitely – they are very similar but just kind of recognizing maybe if you have a heart condition versus not.

Host: So, tell us a little bit about how exercise helps us when we’re looking to reduce some of those risk factors. What is exercise even really doing for us?

Melissa: Exercise does a lot of things to reduce the risk factors for heart disease. So, for example, one would be to – it lowers your blood pressure, so it dilates your blood vessels, it improves blood flow to the muscles. It can lower your cholesterol levels. It helps with improving your HDL cholesterol, the good kind. It helps with lowering our triglycerides which is another type of fat that’s found in the bloodstream.

For people who have diabetes, it actually can act like a medication. So, it brings down your blood sugars. And we’ve seen a lot of patients who are able to get off their meds because they’ve established a consistent exercise routine in their life. It can manage stress. It definitely is a good stress reliever. It helps to control your moods, with depression. There is a lot of benefits to working on a program in your life.

Host: Well I think that’s important because people don’t always know how to start a program and what they should be doing and when we are talking about heart disease, if somebody is diagnosed with heart disease, one type or another; how important is it that they keep an eye on those other things like that they take their medication when prescribed, that they try to begin an exercise program or lose weight or monitor their blood sugars?

Melissa: Yeah, it can be difficult when someone is diagnosed with a heart condition because there’s a lot of changes they may have to make initially. Kind of finding a few changes to make at once, not overdoing it right away, but trying to find a couple of things to focus on whether it’s improving their diet or establishing an exercise program. Once they’ve done that, typically that leads to maybe weightloss and just establishing a better lifestyle because that’s kind of the goal for a lot of people who have just been diagnosed with something like that.

Host: Well it really is so important. It’s really great information. So, what other lifestyle modifications can we do because stress, sleep, anxiety, all of these things are so prevalent right now Melissa. If you were to give people, your best advice on reducing their stress and anxiety and getting a better night’s sleep; what would you tell them?

Melissa: Well, like I say, like if they’re not an exerciser, I really try to promote that, really trying to focus on doing exercise. I think there are so many good benefits to exercise. If they can meet with somebody, if they have never started a program before; to help them work up to the goal is to do like 30 minutes about three to five days a week. I mean specifically the more the better. The more benefits you are going to gain, the more you do.

But if they can really try to meet the 150 minutes per week of aerobic activity that gets your breathing rate up, your heartrate up, they’ll see a lot of benefits from that in terms of reducing your anxiety, diabetes, obesity, all of that kind of comes away from with an exercise program. A lot of people do feel a lot better.

Host: And where does diet fit in then to all of this picture? We don’t have a lot of time but tell us what you tell people everyday about good diet, if they do have heart disease or if they are trying to prevent it. what foods do you want us to really steer clear of or what ones do you love?

Melissa: Yeah so, dietary changes can be difficult, but I would say that a person who has heart disease should definitely choose foods that are low in saturated fats, trans fats and then sodium. Saturated fats are found in fatty cuts of meat, whole fat dairy, those things. really try to avoid those because that can boost your LDL cholesterol and then the sodium is big too. The processed foods, don’t add extra salt to your food, that can cause your blood pressure to go high, it can cause you to retain water. Definitely eat a lot of fruits and vegetables, whole grains, fiber-rich, oily fish at least twice a week. Just getting in a good variety of whole foods I think would be the best, I mean you best plan there. Definitely a lot of rich in nutrients and low in fat and calories.

Host: Then wrap it up for us, best advice for preventing heart disease, our risk factors, why it’s important that we know our numbers and begin an exercise program and all the things you and I have talked about today.

Melissa: Yeah, so, establishing an exercise program, 30 minutes five days a week, that’s just to meet the general health recommendations to be healthy. Obviously if you have other goals, you want to do a little bit more than that. But yeah, a diet that’s essentially the Mediterranean style diet, lots of fruits and vegetables, whole grains, getting some beans, lean proteins, don’t smoke, watch your cholesterol, get it checked. Blood pressure checks. And just keep a healthy weight, that will help as well.

Host: It’s so important. Thank you so much Melissa for joining us today and sharing your advice. What great advice for all of us to hear. That wraps up this episode of Stoughton Hospital Health Talk. Head on over to our website at www.stoughtonhospital.com for more information and to get connected with one of our providers.

If you found this podcast as informative as I did, please share with your friends and family on social media and be sure to check out all the other interesting podcasts in our library. I’m Melanie Cole.