INDIANAPOLIS
– We’re on the cusp of the Thanksgiving 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. Testing further
reduces such risks.
Physicians
and staff at Franciscan St.
Francis Heart Center
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
