What measures can be taken to prevent heart disease?

The essence of heart disease prevention is to build a protection system from daily habits, risk factor control, and regular screening. There is no shortcut. Long-term persistence in detailed health management is far more effective than remediation after symptoms appear.

Last week, I met Uncle Zhang who had just been discharged from the hospital at a community free clinic. He is a 52-year-old engineering engineer. He used to have a wine shop, and it was normal to drink braised food with white wine. He was diagnosed with high blood pressure and did not take medicine on time for three years. Last month, he had an acute myocardial infarction and went to the emergency room to have two stents inserted. Now he walks around the community on crutches. When he meets people, he says to everyone that if he had just drank less two cups a day and walked half an hour more, he would not have suffered such a serious crime.

Don’t think that you can just do anything if you are young. Last month, the emergency department admitted a 28-year-old Internet practitioner. He stayed up late for 11 consecutive days working on projects and had three meals a day of high-fat and high-salt takeaways. When the attack occurred, he had chest pain while sitting at his desk and couldn’t even dial 120. Fortunately, his colleagues found out and sent him to the doctor in time, so nothing serious happened. In recent years, there have been more and more young patients with myocardial infarction in clinical practice. Most of them are caused by staying up late at night, sitting for long periods of time, and eating irregularly. It all comes down to trivial matters: stay up less late at night, go out for a walk for 30 to 40 minutes three or four days a week, avoid heavy oil and salt, and drink less sweet drinks. If you stick to these habits for three to five years, your vascular condition will be much better than that of your peers.

Many people on the Internet now say that drinking red wine can soften blood vessels and protect the heart. There is currently no unified conclusion in the academic community. Some studies believe that resveratrol in red wine may indeed have antioxidant effects. However, there are also a large number of studies that point out that even a small amount of alcohol will increase the burden of cardiovascular metabolism. If you really want to protect your blood vessels, eating two ounces of dark green vegetables every day is more reliable than drinking any amount of red wine.

People with underlying diseases such as high blood pressure, hyperlipidemia, and diabetes should take snacks. Don’t just take medicine if you don’t feel uncomfortable. There was a 60-year-old patient who secretly stopped taking antihypertensive medicines for half a year after hearing from his neighbors that they hurt his kidneys. As a result, he suffered a sudden myocardial infarction and cerebral infarction at the end of the year. He was sent to the ICU for more than 20 days and spent hundreds of thousands of yuan to save him. He also left the sequelae of hemiplegia. These basic diseases are "little bugs" that quietly gnaw at blood vessels. The absence of symptoms does not mean that there is no damage. Following the doctor's advice and controlling the indicators within a reasonable range can reduce the risk of heart attack by more than 60%.

There are also many people who always feel that they do not need to undergo relevant screening if they do not have chest pain or tightness. In fact, there are basically no obvious symptoms of early coronary artery stenosis and vascular calcification. By the time obvious pain occurs, the blood vessels have often been blocked by more than 70%. Over the age of 30, annual physical examinations of blood pressure, blood lipids, and blood sugar are required. If the patient is over 40 years old and has a history of smoking, obesity, or family heart disease, it does not cost much to have a coronary CTA every two or three years. If the problem is discovered early and some medication is intervened, it is much more cost-effective than inserting a stent or bypass if the blood vessel is blocked.

After all, there is really no particularly profound way to prevent heart disease. They are just trivial things that everyone has heard of. The difficulty lies in persisting every day. After all, how you treat your body will be how your body will repay you.