Maintaining a healthy cardiovascular system is essential for a long life. Keep these foods off your shopping list to keep your heart healthy.
Cardiovascular disease, or heart disease, is a serious health issue that affects the heart or the coronary blood vessels.
When a patient experiences decreased blood flow to the heart, a heart attack will likely occur. If the patient doesn’t get help right away, they risk losing part of their heart or even dying.
Luckily, heart disease can be prevented well before a heart attack happens, and one method you can use to reduce your risk of adverse effects from heart disease is to clean up your diet.
3 foods and drinks to avoid to keep your heart healthy
To reduce the likelihood that you will experience negative health impact from heart disease, there are certain foods and drinks you should reduce or eliminate from your diet.
Foods and drinks to reduce or avoid to keep your heart healthy include (but are not limited to) the following:
1. Alcohol
Alcohol can weaken the heart’s muscles and aggravate heart issues. All forms of alcohol, including wine, should be reduced or avoided. Inconclusive results have yet to be found in studies examining the potential health benefits of drinking a glass of red wine each day.
2. Foods high in salt
Overconsumption of salt raises a person’s risk of fluid retention. In extreme cases, this can lead to heart failure.
There are many foods high in salt that you should eat less of or avoid altogether, including:
- Salty cured and processed meats
- Red meat, even unseasoned steaks and hamburgers, as they are still high in the forms of fat that might cause clogged arteries
- Crustaceans and other smoked meats
- Canned goods
- Frozen dinners
- Salted nuts
A low-sodium diet can feel like a hardship because salt is found in nearly every food we eat. However, here are some ideas to reduce your salt intake without feeling too much pain:
- Put your salt shaker away. Instead of keeping your salt shaker on your table, put it in a cupboard so you are less likely to throw salt on foods as a force of habit.
- Look for some simple low-sodium recipes on the internet, and buy canned goods with the label “no added salt”.
- Use other spices and herbs in a variety of ways to enhance the flavor of your food. Consider lemon, garlic, ginger and vinegar to add taste without adding salt.
- Get into the habit of reading the nutrition facts on your food. Low sodium foods have a sodium content on the nutrition information label of 140 mg or less.
3. Highly Processed Grains
White bread, white rice, white pasta, and numerous sugar-sweetened morning cereals are all examples of highly processed grains that have had their fiber removed.
Then why are highly processed grains bad for your heart health?
Many of the most beneficial components of whole grains, such as dietary fiber, minerals, phytochemicals, and fatty acids, are lost through high levels of processing.
A second problem is that high levels of processing destroy the food’s natural structure.
Finally, the addition of unhealthy ingredients, such as trans fats, sodium, and sugars, is common in processing. Fructose is thought to be metabolized differently than other sugars, increasing the liver’s production of new fat. The fructose content of sweeteners like high-fructose corn syrup and sucrose is about half that of glucose.
Medication for heart health
Sometimes, changes to your diet will not be enough to improve your heart health to the desired level. As such, your doctor may prescribe a heart medication.
Common medications include:
NSURx can reduce the cost of your heart medications
Heart medications can be expensive, regardless of if you are insured or uninsured. Out of pocket costs for heart medications can range from $29.95 to $500, or more!
NSURx is a prescription discount card that might help you save money on your heart medication prescriptions.
Prescription costs can be significantly reduced by using NSURx at more than 35,000 pharmacies that accept our service, including Walgreens, CVS, and Walmart.
NSURx can save you up to 80% of your prescription prices. If you present your NSURx powered by SingleCare card to a pharmacist, you will be eligible for a discount.
When you use NSURx, you will also receive NSUR Coin tokens for participating in our community.These tokens can be used to buy goods and services in NSUR’s shopping network.
