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Those who have already had heart attacks and strokes are at high risk of recurrences and death. This risk can be substantially lowered with a combination of drugs – statins for cholesterol lowering and low-doses of common blood pressure lowering drugs and aspirin – given daily to people at elevated risk of heart attack and stroke.

However, the most cost-effective methods of reducing risk among an entire population are population-wide interventions, combining effective policies and broad health promotion policies. These should be the first to be considered in all settings. In many countries, too much focus is being placed on one-on-one interventions among people at medium risk for CVD. A better use of resources would be to focus on those at elevated risk and to use other resources to introduce population-wide efforts to reduce risk factors through multiple economic and educational policies and programs. These risk factors include diet and physical activity. The dietary intake of fats, especially their quality, strongly influences the risk of CVD like coronary heart disease and stroke, through effects on blood lipids, thrombosis, blood pressure, arterial function, arrythogenesis and inflammation. Excess salt has a significant impact on blood pressure levels.

Compelling evidence indicates that the following strategies are effective in preventing CVD, and in helping manage the disease.

Prevention Tips For Cardiovascular Heart Disease

1.Maintain a healthy weight.
2.Avoid smoking
3.At least 30 minutes of regular physical activity daily
4.Avoid excessively salty or sugary foods.
5.Consume a diet high in fruits vegetables, nuts and whole grains, and low in refined grains.
6.Increase consumption of omega-3 fatty acids from fish oil or plant sources;
7.Limit energy intake from total fats and shift fat consumption away from saturated fats to unsaturated fats and towards the elimination of trans-fatty acids;

Well, this is the biggie! With a little effort on each of our parts and a willingness to change, we can make a big difference in the incidence of this nation’s number one killer, cardiovascular disease (CVD). Heart and blood vessel disease are not inevitable; in fact, they are preventable in most cases. It is very clear from every major study in the last decade that diets high in saturated fats and cholesterol, which would consist of regular intake of red meats, dairy foods, and eggs, are directly correlated to the incidence of CVD and its complications, whereas a low saturated fat, low cholesterol diet greatly lowers the risk of these diseases.

The main disease process at the base of the cardiovascular diseases is atherosclerosis, or hardening and clogging of the arteries. (Arteriosclerosis is the generic term referring to hardening of the arteries. Atherosclerosis refers to the disease process of artery plaqueing and is the term I will use in this text.) Atherosclerosis involves the thickening and narrowing of our blood vessels that occurs somewhat in most people, but with certain risk factors it can progress very rapidly and lead to early demise, even in their 40s or 50s. Atherosclerosis commonly affects the coronary arteries, which deliver blood to the heart muscle itself.

This biggest cardiovascular concern causes a great deal of limitation and chest pain, or angina pectoris. When advanced, this coronary artery disease can result in a myocardial infarction (MI, heart attack, or “coronary”). Heart attacks are clearly the most common cause of death in the United States and the Western world. Other areas of the body may also be affected with atherosclerosis. Disease of the carotid arteries of the neck affects our mental faculties; atherosclerosis of the leg arteries decreases our ability to walk without pain; and clogging of the pelvic arteries affects our sexual performance.