Beat the statistics for heart disease
HOPE BEATS THE statistics and will help you overcome the threat of cardiovascular disease. In the United States, over 800,000 people a year die from disease related to the cardiovascular system. Nearly another 150,000 die from strokes, which are the equivalent of a “heart attack of the brain”. While the good news is that these numbers are on the decrease, the bad news is that cardiovascular disease is till the leading cause of death in the United States. Instead of becoming one of these statistics, you can take positive steps naturally and spiritually to beat heart disease. The risk of heart attacks can still be greatly lessened through dietary and lifestyle changes.
In fact, cardiovascular disease is one of the most treatable and preventable of all afflictions, despite the fact that it causes more than one in three of all deaths in the United States every year. That means you can fight back, overcome, and win the battle. Through lifestyle changes, good nutrition, prayer, and Scripture reading, you can respond in confident hope to this disease.
The initial symptoms and warning signs of heart disease are not a death sentence, but they are a life warning. Change is required. Positive steps must be taken. The way you live and eat cannot remain the same if you want to have a healthy and strong heart. Take courage, and be hopeful.
HAVE YOU EVER considered the marvelous design and operation of your cardiovascular system? It’s the body’s amazing superhighway. The large arteries within it are much like interstate expressways, and the smaller arteries are like streets and side streets. The primary function of the circulatory system is to deliver oxygen and nutrients to all the cells in your body and to remove cellular debris and waste.
Each day your heart beats approximately 100,000 times pushing about 2,000 gallons of blood through the 60,000 miles of blood vessels in your body, which include arteries, veins, and capillaries. Despite this incredible distance, blood circulates throughout your entire system about once a minute. Thus your heart will beat over 2.5 billion times if you live an average lifespan, and it will pump over 50 billion gallons of blood! This superhighway system is truly wonderful. Wouldn’t it be a good idea to keep this blood vessel superhighway free of traffic jams?
Yes, we might think of heart problems in terms of traffic flow – and a traffic jam. The worst contributor to a potentially deadly backup is a condition called atherosclerosis, which attacks the heart’s blood vessels. The arteries that supply the heart with blood and nourishment are the coronary arteries. These are the most stressed arteries of the body because they’re squeezed flat from the pumping action of the heart.
Atherosclerosis is the hardening of these arteries most commonly due to excessive amounts of plaque. This plaque contains cholesterol, calcium, white blood cells, collagen, elastin, platelets, and other materials. You could compare plaque to a buildup of debris in a pipe. As the plaque builds up in the arteries, blood flow is eventually decreased to vital organs, including the heart and brain. This buildup can lead to an interruption of blood flow to an artery in the brain, which causes a stroke. When blood flow is interrupted in a coronary artery, a heart attack occurs.
If atherosclerosis is the cause of a traffic jam in the blood flow, you’ll be happy to know that forces are at work in your body to free up the traffic jam. Explain this best by breaking the process into two parts: (1) the problem of free radicals, and (2) the problem of inflammation.
High-glycemic foods are linked to the incidence of obesity, insulin resistance, and type 2 diabetes. Low-glycemic foods – foundation of a nutritious diet release energy slowly and do not cause sudden blood glucose spikes and crashes. Therefore, you don’t feel hungry as quickly, which may help you lose weight.
