Heart disease. It seems so prevalent these days. The thought of it strikes fear in many, but what can be done to prevent it?

Your physician will tell you to lower your cholesterol for heart disease prevention. You may be told to use prescription medications to accomplish that. Did you know, however, that you can lower cholesterol levels too far? Were you aware that cholesterol is needed by the body to produce hormones? Physicians often fail to take this into consideration, simply prescribing what pharmaceutical companies recommend.

Lowering cholesterol may be a step you should take toward heart disease prevention. We are not negating that. However, there are other steps that should not be ignored if heart disease prevention is your goal.

Tips for Heart Disease Prevention

The “Partnership for Prevention” published a report in early August 2007 showing prevention measures that can be used for diseases. Here are a few heart disease prevention tips to consider.

1. Exercise: You hear it every time you turn around. Regular exercise is a part of the “answer” to almost every disease. When it comes to heart disease prevention, exercise is one of the easiest, least expensive steps there is. Exercise strengthens the heart muscle as it strengthens other core body muscles. It can be as simple as walking or riding a bicycle, but it’s good heart disease prevention.

2. WEIGHT Control: A second tip for heart disease prevention is to control your WEIGHT. Learn what a healthy WEIGHT is for your age and height, and then take action to reach that WEIGHT. Excess WEIGHT causes the heart to work harder. Losing it is a simple and inexpensive way to seek heart disease prevention.

3. Aspirin: Medical correspondent Dr. Emily Senay states that it’s a good idea for most adults to take an aspirin each day. This is especially true if you are at risk for heart disease. Aspirin is excellent heart disease prevention. It has been proven to help lower the risk of heart attack or stroke. It helps people who have had problems in the past and people who have not had past problems. Aspirin is effective as heart disease prevention, and is inexpensive. The report cited above states that 45,000 more lives would be saved each year if 90 percent of adults took a regimen dose of aspirin daily for heart disease prevention.

4. No Smoking: Taking steps to stop smoking once and for all is another good means of heart disease prevention. This, too, is inexpensive, and doable by anyone who is serious about it. Smoking affects the heart’s ability to get sufficient oxygen. The report puts at 42,000 the number of additional lives that would be saved each year if 90 percent of smokers got help quitting. It’s vital to heart disease prevention.

5. Stress: A free method of heart disease prevention is to reduce the stress in your life. Stress is your body’s response to unusual demands. Those demands may be the boss piling a huge project on your desk or your children fighting all afternoon. Stress raises Blood Pressure and tightens muscles, preparing for fight or flight. Heart disease prevention demands stress reduction.

You can take these and other definite steps toward heart disease prevention. If you are serious about doing so, we strongly recommend that you read our review of the excellent e-book on preventing and reversing heart disease.

Caution: Please remember that this information is meant for educational purposes only. You should have regular physical checkups, and discuss any symptoms with your physician.

There are many types of heart disease. For each, there are a number of risks. Genetics can often influence whether or not you will get heart disease. Other risks include things such as cigarette smoking, poor cholesterol balance, high Blood Pressure, and obesity.

Heart Disease Defined

Heart disease is defined narrowly as any malady that has an effect on the heart. Such a definition includes only the heart muscle itself. It is a synonym for cardiac disease. More widely, heart disease includes any problem with the heart muscle or the blood vessels leading to and from the muscle.

Heart disease includes, but is not limited to, the following five examples:

* Angina
* Congenital heart disease
* Congestive heart failure
* Coronary artery disease
* Heart attack

Chocolate to the Rescue

Amazingly, studies show that you can reduce your risks for heart disease by eating chocolate.

Andrew Waterhouse, a University of California-Davis researcher, discovered in 1996 that chocolate contains chemicals known as phenols. These chemicals, said Waterhouse, might reduce heart disease risks.

Waterhouse knew that studies had already shown red wine to be effective in reducing heart disease risks. He was curious, however, about chocolate. Using laboratory experiments to measure the amount of phenols in various chocolate products: baker’s chocolate, cocoa powder, and milk chocolate, Waterhouse discovered that less than 2 ounces of milk chocolate provided the same amount of phenols as 5 ounces of red wine.

Eating chocolate, reasoned the researcher, not only can reduce heart disease risks, but more research will show that it does reduce heart disease risks. On the basis of those findings, research on the relationship of chocolate to heart disease continued. Results pointed increasingly toward chocolate’s benefits.

Then, in 2003, the University of Cologne, Germany published a new report on chocolate and heart disease. The Journal of the American Medical Association, Aug, 27, 2003 issue, carried the exciting report from the university’s Dirk Taubert, MD, PhD, and his colleagues.

Dark chocolate lowers high Blood Pressure and reduces that risk associated with heart disease.

Taubert and colleagues, following through on Waterhouse’s beginning work, had shown through clinical research the effects of chocolate in humans with heart disease. Milk chocolate and white chocolate were ineffective. Whether milk was blended into the chocolate or consumed with it, it diluted the effect.

Choose Dark Chocolate

Choose dark chocolate to reduce heart disease risks. Dark chocolate is the only one that linked back to Waterhouse’s 1996 discovery about phenols.

Cocoa phenols lower Blood Pressure. They also lower the risk of heart disease by preventing fat-like substances from clogging arteries.

Eating dark chocolate can reduce certain heart disease risks - if it is dark chocolate - the darker the better - and is not diluted with milk. European chocolates contain more cocoa phenols, and are the better choice.

Conclusion

Some risks for heart disease are not affected by chocolate, but this is a sweet way to attack those that are. Moderation is the key.

CAUTION: The author is not a medical professional, and offers the information in this article for educational purposes only. Please discuss it with your health care provider before relying on it in any way.

Heart bypass surgery is, as we noted in Part 1 of this article, like rerouting traffic around a rock slide that has blocked a highway. A new route is constructed to let traffic flow around the blockage, and the old route is closed forever.

Heart bypass surgery is currently one of the most common surgeries in the U.S., but potential complications do exist. You should discuss the possible complications with your doctor.

Complications of Heart Bypass Surgery

Remember that the complications are potential, not promised. Many people experience none of them.

* Bleeding: After heart bypass surgery, there is a possibility that you may have excessive bleeding. This could necessitate additional surgery.

* Organ Failure: The surgery can result in failure of one or more organs: kidney, liver, or lungs. The potential for this complication of heart bypass surgery increases if you are already suffering from chronic kidney or lung disease.

* Recurrence: Within the first 2 weeks after heart bypass surgery, 5 to 10 percent of bypass blood vessels become blocked again. Between 2 weeks and 1 years, another 10 percent of bypass vessels have become blocked again.

Most at Risk

Patients over 70 years of age are most at risk for the complications of heart bypass surgery. Women are more at risk than men, possibly because they and their blood vessels are smaller. People who have other health problems such as diabetes and chronic lung or kidney disease also run greater risk of complications from heart bypass surgery.

Benefits

Despite the potential complications of heart bypass surgery, there are benefits to be gained. Heart bypass surgery may improve your quality of life greatly. If you were suffering angina pain, you may find yourself able to return to activities you had given up.

This surgery may increase the number of years you will live. Without it, the blocked arteries could, in many cases, lead to a heart attack in the near future. While the surgery is no guarantee that you will live longer, it may reduce the risk that your death will be hastened by blocked arteries.

Bypass surgery is not a cure, in that it will not stop blood vessels from becoming blocked in the future. It does, however, give you opportunity to prevent or reduce future blockage by lifestyle changes.

CAUTION: This information is for educational purposes only. Your cardiologist (heart doctor) will help you decide whether heart bypass surgery is best for you. Please seek his or her advice.