What are the preventive measures for heart disease?

In fact, reliable heart disease prevention does not have as many flashy folk remedies as spread on the Internet. The core is to adjust your living habits to a healthy track, control existing chronic basic diseases, and conduct targeted screenings regularly. If you wait until your chest feels tight and painful and you can't breathe before you think of fixing the leak, it is often too late.

A while ago, I accompanied a friend to a cardiology department for a review. I met a 32-year-old programmer who usually looks quite strong. He stays up late all the time to catch up on projects, eats takeaways that are heavy in oil and salt, and smokes constantly. Last week, while working overtime, he suddenly felt a tearing pain in his chest. When he was sent here, he found that his coronary artery was 80% blocked, and he had to put in an emergency stent to save him. The doctor said that if he had paid attention to adjusting his work and rest and controlling his elevated blood lipids six months earlier, he would never have reached this stage.

Don’t think that heart disease is only for the elderly. It is now too common for people in their thirties and forties to have problems. When it comes to life adjustment, it’s really not about eating boiled vegetables all the time or forcing yourself to run five kilometers every day. Instead, it’s more important to find a rhythm that you can stick to for a long time. For example, don’t always focus on high-fat and high-sugar fried foods and butter hotpots when eating. Eat some deep-sea fish two or three times a week. Half of your plate should be filled with whole grains and green leafy vegetables. It is easier to stick to it than to be greedy for everything and search for calories. There is no need to pursue high-intensity exercise. You can walk briskly for 30 minutes every day, go around twice when picking up the kids, or even get off the car and walk two stops ahead of your commute. As long as your heart beats a little faster and your body feels slightly warm, if you insist on checking the elasticity of your blood vessels for three months, you will see changes. By the way, there is also the disadvantage of smoking. Regardless of whether it is first or second hand, the harmful substances in cigarettes directly scrape the inner walls of blood vessels. No matter how much coenzyme and fish oil you take, it can't make it faster than ten cigarettes a day. Several people around me who have smoked for ten years have quit smoking for half a year, and the chest tightness they used to suffer from before has become much less severe.

Many people have a misunderstanding that if their blood pressure, blood sugar, and blood lipids are high, they don't need to worry about it as long as they don't feel dizzy or uncomfortable. This is actually the most deceptive thing. Abnormalities in these indicators are like small moths quietly gnawing at water pipes. They usually don't move. When you feel pain, either the blood vessels are gnawed and blocked, or the pipe walls are gnawed thin and broken. There is still some controversy in the academic circles over whether people over 40 years old with mildly elevated blood lipids but no symptoms should take statin intervention in advance. One group thinks that it can be reduced by adjusting the lifestyle for 3 months, and there is no need to rush to take medicine. ； The other group believes that early intervention can reduce the risk of myocardial infarction by more than 30%. There is no need to worry about the specific choice. Just go to a cardiologist with the report and make a comprehensive judgment based on your family history and other indicators. Don't buy medicines on your own, and don't just ignore them.

The last step is regular screening. Don’t just focus on the ordinary electrocardiogram in the annual routine physical examination. It can only catch the heart abnormality at the time of the examination. If you have high blood pressure, diabetes, or an immediate family member has had heart disease before the age of 55, it is best to have a coronary CT or dynamic electrocardiogram every year. Signs of blood vessel stenosis can be detected early, which can be reversed with some medication or adjustment of living habits. The prognosis is much better than waiting for the blood vessel to be blocked and then inserting a stent. To put it bluntly, your heart is like a car that you have been driving for more than ten years. Don't be too harsh on it. Repair minor problems in time and do regular maintenance so that it can drive for a long time. If you really wait for the engine to pull the cylinder and then send it for repair, it will cost money and hurt your foundation.