How To Prevent Coronary Heart Disease

Coronary heart disease is a condition whereby there is a blockage in the coronary arteries, causing a reduced amount of blood flow in your heart muscles. It is a common affliction in Singapore, and is in fact the 2nd most common cause of death in Singapore in 2020. Learning how to prevent coronary heart disease is a first step that everyone needs to be aware of – prevention is better than cure! Here are some of the preventive measures that we can start to implement in our lifestyles to keep this disease at bay.

Do These To Help Prevent Coronary Heart Disease

Give Up Smoking

Smokers are at higher risk of contracting serious illnesses, one of them being coronary heart disease. Moreover, not only are smokers’ own health at risk, other people around them will have their health put at risk. This is because secondhand smoke also can cause serious health problems. 

Avoid Excessive Alcohol Consumption

While the jury is still out on whether moderate alcohol consumption reduces the risks of developing heart disease, there is strong evidence that heavy consumption is linked to a number of poor health outcomes, including coronary heart conditions. Consuming too much alcohol can result in high blood pressure, heart failure, to cardiomyopathy (a disorder of the heart muscle). One drink per day for women and one or two for men is defined as “moderate alcohol consumption”. A standard “drink” is about 360 ml of beer or 120 ml of wine.

People with certain heart rhythm abnormalities or have heart failure should strive to avoid all alcohol consumption.

Maintain A Healthy BMI 

Our Body Mass Index (BMI) is also a main factor that affects our health. A BMI score of 25 or higher is considered overweight, and this is generally associated with higher cholesterol and blood pressure. Overweight people have a higher probability of developing coronary heart disease. Losing between 5 to 10 per cent of your current weight can help you to lower the probability of developing serious heart issues.

Get Sufficient Exercise

Regular physical activity can lower the risk of coronary heart disease. Exercise can help to control our weight and reduce the chances of developing conditions that can strain our heart (e.g. high blood pressure, high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes). For instance, we can aim to do about 150 minutes of brisk walking, 75 minutes of running, and 2 or more strength training sessions each week.

Manage Your Stress Level 

In our modern society, we can face stress almost every day – whether it is at our workplace, school or even our home. However, a high level of stress can push us toward more dangerous problems. That is why we need to find ways to release our stress in healthy ways. It can be from exercising, relaxing or meditation, for instance.

Get Regular Health Checkups 

The more you age, the more you need to pay attention to your health. Getting a regular checkup at your family clinic or nearby hospital can tell you if you have any serious illnesses or not. Doing basic check ups like blood pressure tests, cholesterol level checks, etc, can be a lifesaver. 

Eat A Balanced Diet

Low-fat, high-fibre diets are generally recommended for good health and are a good way to help prevent coronary heart disease. Diets should include sufficient amounts of fresh fruit and vegetables and whole grains.

Excessive intake of salt and sugar should also be avoided. Too much salt will increase your blood pressure, and thus we should also limit the amount of salt we eat to less than 6g a day. On the other hand, too much sugar can increase the changes of diabetes, which in turn increase the chances of coronary heart disease.

Food containing saturated fats should be avoided as they will increase the amount of bad cholesterol in our blood. Examples of foods that are high in saturated fat include sausages, fatty meat, cakes and biscuits, and foods that contain coconut or palm oil. On the other hand, food that contain unsaturated fats may increase the levels of good cholesterol and help reduce arterial blockage. Examples of foods with high unsaturated fat include oily fish, avocados, nuts and seeds.

Get Good Quality Sleep

Not getting enough rest or good quality of sleep can affect your health. This is because when we are sleeping our body is able to rest and recover after working hard all day long. That is why most adults need at least 7 hours of sleep.