Heart Rate Monitor 

Do You Have a Heart Rate Monitor?

Heart disease should always be foremost in your mind no matter what your age. The quality of your lifestyle and the fuel you feed your body today can either help prevent, delay or minimize the effect of heart disease or it can make it much worse.

The key to not developing heart disease is to continually be in control of the risk factors – obesity which is one of the most common causes of heart disease goes together with lack of exercise – and to make sure you are not at risk when you exercise it is wise to use a Polar heart rate monitor.

Coronary heart disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women all around the world and in the United States about 460,000 Americans die every year from having a heart attack.

Body Mass Index has long been an indicator used to predict the possibility of a heart attack.

A recent study indicates that hip-to-waist ratio may be a better predictor. Information was drawn from some 27,000 people covering four major countries including more than 12,000 who had suffered a heart attack.

The study revealed that the risk of heart disease rose as waist size grew in proportion to hip circumference. It also revealed that the 20 percent with the highest waist-to-hip size ratio were two and a half times more likely to have a heart attack than the 20 percent with the lowest ration.

This all comes back to the fuel we use to power our bodies – the only way to help trim the abdomen is to watch what you eat and constantly think “heart health”.

The next best thing for your heart care program is to “get active”.

Apart from quitting smoking, limiting or reducing your intake of alcohol (although you know they say red wine is good for the heart – just not the whole bottle) the other main ingredient to a healthy heart is some moderate routine physical exercise for 30 minutes at least 5 days a week.

You will also find it interesting to know that having a dog gives you several health benefits over people without a dog.

1. Improved cardiovascular health - dog owners have been proven to have blood pressure and cholesterol lower than ordinary people. Five thousand four hundred people were tested by the Baker Medical Research Institute of Australia and the results showed pet owners having not just lower blood pressure but also lower levels of blood triglycerides and cholesterol compared to people who didn't own any pets.
2. Dog owners have a greater chance to survive after suffering from a heart attack. Seniors also had faster recovery time, higher survival rates and spent less time in a rehabilitation program.
3. Fewer visits to the doctor - owning a pet corresponds to overall improved heart health and less need for hospital visits especially for baby boomers.
4. Mental Wellness - patients who have dogs have also been known to have better emotional health than their counterparts. Several studies of people with major illnesses have shown that the stress of fighting heart disease is significantly reduced when they had a dog as company.