Preventing Heart Disease

The 6 things you need to do to prevent heart disease – By Jill Buchner

A 20-year study has found the six things every woman needs to do to drastically cut down her chance of developing heart disease. The researchers, from Harvard and other U.S. universities, followed about 70,000 women to figure out the real reasons why young women (think 35 to 44-year-olds) were experiencing heart attacks.

What they found in their study, which was published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, was that adhering to these six healthy habits reduces your risk of having a heart attack by 92 percent and your risk of developing a risk factor for heart disease by 66 percent.

Here are the six most important things you can do to keep your heart healthy.

1. Don’t smoke (You know it’s bad for you, but if you’re still struggling, read our six ways to quit smoking.)

2. Get your body mass index to the normal range (Learn how to calculate yours.)

3. Be physically active for at least two and a half hours a week (Learn how to fit fitness into your busy schedule.)

4. Watch seven or fewer hours of TV a week (Find fun things to do when you unplug.)

5. Don’t have more than one alcoholic drink a day (In the study, those who drank one drink actually had a lower risk than those who didn’t drink at all!)

6. Have a healthy diet (as defined by the Harvard School of Public Health eating plate)

If you’re not hitting all these marks yet, make this year to work on checking off all these heart-healthy boxes. But don’t worry if you aren’t perfect. Women in the study who were hitting four out of the six healthy habits still had a significantly lower risk of developing heart disease than those who didn’t follow any of the habits.

Here’s to a heart-healthy!