A Cardiologist's Checklist For Protecting Your Heart

Check this list to see how you may be harming your heart, and then set some heart healthy intentions for 2017!

Prolonged sitting is now firmly associated with heart disease and premature aging of arteries. In a study using heart CT scans and physical activity records of more than 2,000 adults living in Dallas, each hour of sitting per day was associated with a 14 percent increase in coronary artery calcification. Coronary calcification is a sign of damaged heart arteries and can increase the risk of a heart attack. Standing desks, apps, and timers are all necessary tools in today’s sedentary society.

Sleep is restorative and your pillow is the best anti-aging pill that exists. In a study1 that compared people sleeping poorly (and less than six hours a night) to those sleeping soundly for seven hours, the risk of coronary heart disease (clogged arteries) was shown to be 79 percent higher! Sleep more soundly in 2017 using mindfulness meditation, smart phone apps, or adaptogenic herbs.

There are many benefits to yoga but one of the most powerful is spinal flexibility. Unknown to most are studies2 that flexibility of the spine correlates to flexibility of important arteries in the body. My favorite practice for the spine are the 5 Tibetans which you can learn online with free video demonstrations.

You can run but you can't hide from toxins in plastics, cosmetics, and food. Heavy metals like mercury and lead are particularly damaging to the heart and arteries. Some kind of sweating practice—as in exercise or better yet infrared sauna—can help eliminate toxins efficiently according to many research studies3.

Most sexual encounters raise the heart rate and blood pressure significantly. And fortunately, studies4 show that the more frequent the sex, the lower the risk of heart events. So get busy in 2017.

If you are watching your weight by drinking a few cans of diet soda a day, you are trading evil for evil and increasing your risk of heart disease. A massive study showed that women that drink two or more diet sodas a day have a major increase in heart disease and death. Water, unsweetened tea, green juice, and black coffee should be the items on your list.

You may be young and feel invincible, but even a healthy lifestyle does not make you immune to heart disease—beginning even in your teens and 20s. Along with lifestyle choices like diet, smoking, and exercise there are genetic factors that play a role in heart health. See a health care provider to check your blood pressure, an EKG for your QT interval, and get lab work done for fasting glucose, vitamin D levels, a cholesterol panel, lipoprotein a and homocysteine measurements, and an assessment of inflammation by a test called hs-CRP. If you are over 40 with risks for heart disease, get a coronary artery calcium scan and know your score.

Maybe it's too obvious to include this on the list, but smoking puts you on the fast track to a heart attack. And although smoking rates are dropping, about a quarter of millennials still smoke which is the highest5 percentage of any age group. Quit now.

Stress has been linked to heart disease for decades and the introduction of smart phones and wi-fi hasn't made life any more relaxing. 24/7 isn't just a tag phrase but a credo for many young people, and the stress and accompanying adrenal fatigue can age arteries fast. Learn a few strategies to manage stress that you can use on a daily basis and take a technology detox at least a few hours a week.

Getting the public to focus on heart disease is a difficult task because it develops silently over years, often without warning. I remind people that just like wrinkles around the eyes, there are wrinkles of the heart arteries. But the aging of our heart can be measured and prevented, so keep this checklist on hand and make your heart health an important part of the year to come!