Heart Disease is the #1 Killer of Women in America
Heart attacks are still the leading cause of premature deaths in North America. 8,000,000 American women are currently living with heart disease and are 4 to 6 times more likely to die of heart disease than of breast cancer. Heart disease kills more women over 65 than all cancers combined.
What Can I do to protect myself and loved ones?
For both men and women, the biggest factors that contribute to heart disease are smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, family history and age. Take a moment to look at your lifestyle, family history and your general health. A proven and easy way to reduce the risk of heart disease is walking.
Walking helps improve the efficiency of the heart muscle and aids blood to flow faster and freer around the body.A strong, healthy heart means no heart attacks. Walking fits the bill and researchers say walking briskly for three hours a week will reduce coronary heart disease risk in women by 30 to 40 percent.
Regular walking also helps to fight other killer diseases, such as diabetes and certain cancers, as well as debilitating conditions such as osteoarthritis, and it also supports the immune system.
Walking provides emotional benefits, too: it seems to improve mood and reduce stress.
A diabetes prevention study of more than 3,000 patients with impaired glucose tolerance (a pre-diabetes condition) shows that those who walked or exercised five times a week for 30 minutes lost between 5 and 7 percent of their body weight and reduced their risk of diabetes by 58 percent. Those over age 60 reduced their risk of diabetes by 71 percent, a result not matched by any drug used in the study.
In another study, 44 diabetic patients who wore a pedometer for three months and were asked to walk 10,000 steps a day showed improvements in their fitness, blood glucose, cholesterol, triglycerides, blood pressure, and weight, and lost an average of more than 4 lbs each.
According to the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), a group of middle-aged women who used pedometers showed a significant inverse relationship between the average number of steps they took and their body mass index (BMI) as well as their measures of body fat, waist and hip circumference. Women who averaged more than 10,000 steps a day had only 26 percent body fat, well within the recommended BMI range, while those who averaged fewer than 6,000 steps a day had 44 percent body fat.
Send this heartfelt message to someone whose heart you care about.
