Heart Health Archive

Try some low-impact activities to ease into an exercise routine.

You know that regular exercise is good for your heart. But only about half of American adults manage the 2.5 hours per week of moderate exercise (such as brisk walking) recommended by the federal physical activity guidelines. Being too busy is a common excuse, but there are bona fide reasons for not exercising. If you're recovering from a heart attack, are overweight, or are simply out of shape, 30 minutes of exercise a day may feel out of reach.

Potassium chloride salts are one option, but many people prefer herb and spice blends.

If you have high blood pressure, scaling back the sodium in your diet is a smart move. Excess sodium (a main component of salt) makes the body hold on to extra water, which can elevate blood pressure. And most of us consume more than double the limit of 1,500 milligrams per day of sodium recommended by the American Heart Association.

Because professional athletes exercise for a living, you might assume that they have healthier hearts than the rest of us. But that's not necessarily the case, at least among retired National Football League linemen. Those former players—who played tackle, guard, center, or defensive end positions—have a higher risk of dying of cardiovascular disease compared with the general population, according to a study in the November American Journal of Cardiology.

Linemen are also more likely to have calcifications in their arteries (an early warning of future heart disease) than non-linemen, the study showed. Non-linemen included all other positions, such as running backs, wide receivers, tight ends, and others.

As many as one in four adults has nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), a condition marked by excess fat in the liver. Although often symptomless, it can eventually damage the liver, leading to fatigue, weakness, abdominal pain, and other symptoms. NAFLD tends to occur in people who are overweight or obese, or who have diabetes—problems that are also common in people with heart disease. Now, new research finds a strong link between NAFLD and dangerous plaque inside in the heart's arteries.

The study, in the Nov. 4, 2014, issue of Radiology, included 445 people who were admitted to emergency rooms with suspected heart attacks. Researchers used computed tomography (CT) scans, a type of enhanced x-ray imaging, to assess the participants' livers and coronary arteries. People with NAFLD were six times as likely to have high-risk plaque—the type most likely to cause a heart attack—than those without the liver condition. There are no treatments for NAFLD, but eating a healthy diet, exercising regularly, and losing weight if needed may help prevent or even reverse possible liver damage from the condition. 

Secondhand smoke exposure raises the odds of developing heart disease by 25% to 30%. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that each year, about 34,000 people die from heart disease caused by secondhand smoke in the United States. But nonsmokers hospitalized with heart disease are rarely asked about this risk, according to a report published online in JAMAInternal Medicine on Nov. 10, 2014.

Of the 214 people in the study, 33 said they'd been exposed to other people's cigarette smoke within a week of being hospitalized. And while nearly all of the participants knew that secondhand smoke was harmful to nonsmokers, about half were "not at all" worried about their own exposure. Saliva testing for cotinine, a marker of nicotine exposure, found detectable levels in 29 of 72 people tested.

Doing high-tech heart scans on people at above-average risk of heart problems sounds like common sense, but it often doesn't add much benefit to just taking necessary medications, staying fit, eating healthy, and not smoking. This is one take-home message from a study in The Journal of the American Medical Association, which involved a group of people long known to be at higher cardiac risk: middle-aged adults with diabetes.

The 900 study participants were already being treated with medication and other measures to lower their blood sugar. They had no existing symptoms of clogged arteries, like chest pain or past heart attacks. Half were chosen at random to have CT angiography, a scan that can reveal cholesterol-rich deposits that lead to heart attacks.