8 Signs Your Heart is Healthy
Heart health and cardiovascular disease are always dominating health news. And it should. Improving heart health will make you look better, have better sleep, have better sex, build muscles better, and make you perform better and more efficiently at both work and play. AND better heart health reduces your risks of strokes, and heart attacks, and high blood pressure. Thus, improving your heart health helps to save your kidneys, your eyesight and your brain function as well! Need we say more!
Just having completed a few circuits at the gym or making it through a hot yoga class without undue shortness of breath or chest pain, gives you a hint that many aspects of your cardiovascular system are functioning well. Being unduly fatigued or short of breath or seeing that your ankles are swelling in the morning: body signaling get evaluated!
Although there are some 400 factors leading to heart disease, not all of which can be tested, some factors are more easily identified, and more important, more readily treated.
Consult your primary care if you have serious concerns of heart disease. But, here 8 cost effective and relatively simple heart check “tests” you use to evaluate and improve your heart health.
1. Poor circulation means worse kidney function, and if the kidneys aren’t functioning they will push protein through to your urine in greater amounts. The first test of heart’s ability to pump is to test your pee for protein with a pee stick test…this test is relatively sensitive, but we know that you can get a false positive result if not done thoughtfully. If you exercise like a maniac for a day or two, this always throws it off, heavy exercise can make you spill protein in your urine without anything else being wrong.
2. Test your B vitamin levels: homocysteine, folic acid, and B12 are all critically important for overall heart health and those with genetic mutations, such as the MTHFR gene variants, can be at greater risk if their B vitamins are also off. Just having slightly defective MTHFR genes, meaning that you actually have one normal and only one abnormal copy of the gene is not typically a heart problem if your levels of B vitamins in your diet is optimized. And we can tell that if your blood homocysteine levels are elevated.
3. Test your body for inflammation. Inflammation can cause many diseases, and cardiovascular disease is one. To test your blood for inflammation: Cardio C-Reactive Protein, fibrinogen, and other markers of inflammation all contribute to how likely you are to have heart disease, and it is the C-CRP that is most available and often covered by your insurance.
4. Check your lipid particle status, not just a whole cholesterol panel, check the triglycerides and the apolipoproteins, the size of your particles, the exact nature of your good and bad cholesterol. In fact the newest tests will test for fractional particles which may never show up on a routine blood exam. You may also want to check the genetics of your ability to form lipid-protein molecules, and this can tell you if you are more likely to get high cholesterol from dietary mistakes such as excess carbohydrate intake.
5. Take your pulse at rest. Your resting pulse should be between 60 and 100. Resting heart rate shows, generally speaking, how well your heart is functioning. So be sure to know what is your actual pulse rate. You can also check your pulse at various times of the day. After exercise? In the morning? Do a pulse challenge, take your morning pulse today, then exercise consistently this summer and then take your pulse again in 3 months. If you have improved your morning resting pulse you have likely improved your fitness.
6. Blood pressure measurement; another test that is best done at home at various times of the day. Send your numbers to your PCP and find out if they are normal. Generally the cut off for normal, under the age of 60, is under 140/90.
7. A cardiogram can pick up rhythm problems of your heart. EKG testing you would need to do in your health care provider’s office, especially if you feel you skip beats, have extra beats, have a racing heart beat.
8. Pulse checks and blood pressure checks around your body. Your pulse and blood pressure ideally are the same all through your body including your wrist, and your ankle. A simple test, but probably something your PCP will have to help you with, although there is a simple EKG on some Apple Watches.
9. Having a normal blood sugar. Diabetes has long term heart health consequences that begin with the first signs of elevated blood sugars.
10. Regularly practicing breath work, mindfulness, and relaxation techniques is actually an important part of heart health, and a sign that you are doing your best to keep your heart healthy.
At Women’s Health Practice we want to help you optimize your heart health through nutrition and hormone management. Call for consultation 217-356-3736.
