INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana – We’re on the cusp of the holiday season and
poised for family gatherings and meals. It also provides an opportunity for
families to take stock of their heart health.
Learning your family health history can help you identify your risk of
developing heart and vascular disease and stroke. Knowing the risk can minimize
the potential of heart attacks and conditions such as heart valve disease. And
further testing may reduce such risks.
Physicians and staff at Franciscan Health offer some tips
on what information family members may glean from one another during the
holidays:
·
Get health information from your mother, father,
sister, brother
·
If relatives have had a heart attack or stroke, how
old were they? (if your father or brother were younger than 55 years old or
your mother or sister were younger than 65, your risk is higher)
·
Who in the family has high cholesterol, high blood
pressure?
·
Does diabetes run in the family?
·
Have your parents had surgery for heart valve
disease?
·
Does any family member have peripheral arterial
disease (bad circulation in the legs), aneurysms or blocked carotid
arteries? These are all signs of cardiovascular
disease.
You can’t change your family, but there are other controllable risk
factors to be considered, physicians say.
- Don’t smoke
- Maintain a healthy weight
- Exercise 30 - 60 minutes, five days a
week, or simply increase your
activity level
- Control blood pressure (less than
120/80)
- Control cholesterol levels
- Control blood sugar if you are diabetic
