Risk Factors You Can Change

If you’re living the couch potato life, your body is storing calories as fat instead of burning them, which leads to high triglycerides and LDL. In fact, lack of exercise is so dangerous for your heart that some experts think a history of no regular physical activity should count as a risk factor for heart disease- one just as dangerous as high LDL.

You don’t have to do much to make a difference, just 20 minutes of brisk walking per day will help your body burn calories instead of storing them as fat.

Your Diet

There’s simply no way around it: You high in saturated fat and trans fatty Sn . acids (the stuff McDonald’s cut back A trim waistline cuts ae on in late 2002), you’re more likely to have high cholesterol.

The fewer fruits, vegetables, whole increases the risk. Use a tape measstrains, aril fiber you get, the more ure to measure the smallest part of likely you are to have high cholesterol eart, disease, even without the high more than 40 inches ‘ holester i f hapter 4 outlines the in men or eating stratemes of the  35 inches in Plan, They are designed not only-to wee ee ; indicate an lower your cholestero! and your risk i f heart diseases risk of CHD. your artenes as well

Your Weight

America has a weight problem. Just consider the seat situation. To accommodate our girth, seats in auditoriums, stadiums, even subway cars have been widened. And some airlines are beginning to enforce policies whereby people who spill out of the seat they purchase must buy a second. According to the latest figures, nearly 65 percent of American adults are either overweight or obese.

Being overweight has repercussions far beyond where you buy your clothes. Its associated with increased LDL and decreased HDL. Where you gain weight also matters. Pounds packed around the waist (the old spare tire or beer belly) increase your risk of CHD as well as your risk of metabolic syndrome, described in Chapter 2. Extra padding around the hips (more typical for women) is less dangerous. Wherever you carry your extra weight, if you’re a woman it may be even more important for you to lose the pounds. One long-term study of 116,000 women found. that almost 40 percent of their CHD risk was related to weight.

Stress and Hostility

The phrase “stress” has become so ubiquitous in our culture that it can at times seem meaningless. But to your heart and blood vessels, it’s anything but. Stress—especially the chronic type you suffer with financial, health, or marital problems—plays a critical role in your risk for CHD. For instance, one study found that levels of LDL rose about 5 percent ira group of middle-aged male airline pilots when they experienced episodes of high occupational stress. Stress also affects your endothelial function (which indicates the all-important health of your artery walls) and how quickly you’re able to clear triglycerides from your blood after eating. (Remember, the higher your triglyceride level, the more triglycerides are delivered to your liver, where they are transformed into LDL and VLDL—the “bad” and “very bad” kinds of cholesterol.) Stress can also raise your blood pressure and make your blood more likely to clot.