Love Your Heart

Joy Rojas

Five ways to keep it healthy and strong

For an organ of its size—as big as a fist, it is located behind and slightly towards the left side of the breastbone—the human heart is a powerhouse crucial to your survival.

“Beating an average of 100,000 times a day, the heart is responsible for pumping about 2,000 gallons of oxygenated blood throughout your body daily,” says Eduardo Ongleo Yambao Jr., cardiologist at Centre Medicale Internationale (CMI). When the heart fails to do its job, it can cause shortness of breath, fatigue, chest pain, dizziness, and in more severe and advanced cases, death.

According to the World Health Organization’s 2019 Global Health Estimates, 120 out of 100,000 Filipinos died from ischemic or coronary heart disease. That’s an increase from 105 per 100,000 Filipinos reported in 2015.

“Coronary heart disease,” says Dr. Yambao, “happens when plaque (cholesterol deposits) forms on the walls of the arteries that supply oxygenated blood to the heart. A buildup of plaque causes the arteries to narrow over time, thus impeding blood flow.”

This can lead to a heart attack, or a loss of blood supply to the heart muscle. It is not to be mistaken for heartburn, which is a burning pain in the chest caused by stomach acids that flow back up to the esophagus, the tube where food passes from your mouth to your stomach.

To take care of your heart, Dr. Yambao recommends committing to these five simple habits:

Eat healthy.  Load up on green leafy vegetables (spinach, kale, broccoli), whose vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants have been known to lower the risk of heart disease. Consume whole grains (brown rice, quinoa, oats, barley), which help reduce LDL or “bad” cholesterol. Skip meat and pick fatty fish (salmon, tuna, mackerel, sardines): they are rich in omega-3 fatty acids, which decrease levels of total cholesterol, triglycerides, fasting blood sugar, and systolic blood pressure. Nuts and seeds (almonds, walnuts, chia seeds, flaxseeds) are packed with vitamins and minerals that reduce the level LDL cholesterol while elevating HDL or “good” cholesterol. Fruits also contain heart-healthy nutrients. Avocadoes are rich in cholesterol-lowering monounsaturated fats. And berries are an excellent source of anthocyanin, which protects the heart against oxidative stress and inflammation—factors associated with heart disease.

Exercise.  Aerobic exercise (moderate walking, running, swimming, biking) for at least 30 minutes five days a week strengthens the heart. It also releases endorphins, “happy hormones” that relieve stress and pain.

Avoid stress.  While some stress is good for you, as it pushes you to step out of your comfort zone and achieve what you thought you were not capable of, constant stress can be hard on your heart. Stress triggers the release of the hormone cortisol, elevated levels of which increase cholesterol, triglycerides, blood sugar, and blood pressure. Stress can also lead you to take up unhealthy habits like eating too much, smoking, and drinking alcohol. To ease the anxiety and tension that go with stress, surround yourself with loving and supportive family members and friends, engage in activities that provide much-needed stress relief (yoga, meditation, prayer, or a favorite hobby), and learn how to handle stressful people and situations. Accepting that you cannot control or change them somehow lessens the burden.

Relax. Whether it’s gardening, reading, or listening to music, engaging in activities that bring you joy relieve you of stress, which, in turn, takes a load off your heart.

See your doctor. The American Heart Association recommends undergoing heart health screenings such as blood pressure, cholesterol tests, and electrocardiography (ECG) annually and beginning at the age of 20—earlier if you have a strong family history of heart disease. If you have already been diagnosed with some form of heart disease and are being treated for it, do not miss your regular doctor appointments, and always remember to take your prescription medicines.

Centre Medicale Internationale (CMI) has highly qualified board-certified cardiologists in its roster of specialists. It also houses a number of diagnostic tests and equipment to support heart health: ECG (adult and pediatric), 2D Echocardiogram with Doppler (adult and pediatric), 24-hour Holter Monitoring, 24-Hour Ambulatory Blood Pressure, and Treadmill Stress Test, to name a few.

Call CMI at (02) 8816-1035-36 or email experience@cminternationale.com to schedule an appointment for a face-to-face or online consult, or to undergo any of the available heart health screening tests.