Arielle Fischer, features editor
José Reyes, asst. features editor
The United States recognizes American Heart Month, throughout February, as a time to reflect on personal heart health and educate others about the importance of cardiovascular wellness. As a critical organ, the heart needs to be healthy and in shape to keep the body functioning. Here are some ways in which people can not only look out for their own hearts but to encourage others to take care of theirs.
Diets and Nutrition
According to Junior Julia Oliver, one of Berry’s student nutrition specialists, diets can have a large impact on heart health.
“Diets are very connected to heart health,” Oliver said. “Obesity is very connected to your heart rate because the more weight you have on, the more it puts on your heart. A good healthy diet is eating good fruits, whole grains and vegetables. It can help keep your blood pressure good and your weight down.”
Oliver said cholesterol, the buildup of plaque in the arteries, creates high blood pressure and often leads to heart problems. According to Oliver, while people already have natural cholesterol in their bodies, what they eat affects their given amount. If someone ate highly saturated foods, their cholesterol would grow tremendously and may lead to heart problems, but if someone eats healthier foods, their overall cholesterol would be reduced and they have a higher chance of keeping their heart healthy, Oliver said.
Senior, Lisa Bemis, student nutritionist, also said diet affects not only the heart, but also people’s overall health.
“I think college students probably don’t consider heart health very often because it takes years of a poor diet and inactivity to lead you to cardiovascular disease,” Bemis said. “One thing for students to occasionally monitor their cholesterol is donating blood. This way, they can see if they’re in a normal range and need to make adjustments to their diet or lifestyle.”
“Food and exercise are medicine, and need to be treated as such,” Bemis said. “Food has the opportunity to fuel us or make us sluggish. It’s like putting gas in your car, you wouldn’t put vegetable oil in your car because it would slow it down. In the same way, if we put things, we know are bad into our bodies, it will decrease our functions, like overall health, heart health, energy levels and brain function.”
Both Oliver and Bemis recommend that students and staff take advantage of the nutritionists on campus, as they can help people reach goals in their personal health and get them on track to a nutritious, healthy lifestyle.
All About the Heart
Jake Berger, visiting professor of biology, said that learning how the heart functions is essential to maintaining its health.
“The heart is so important because of what it actually does,” Berger said. “The heart is like two pumps; one side is going to your lungs to get oxygen which keeps all of our tissues alive. The other side is pumping all the oxygenated blood to your tissues to keep you alive, making it one of the most important organs we have.”
According to Berger, the heart distributes oxygen throughout the body via the bloodstream. He said that if people do not have a good circulation of blood, they risk developing edema, a swelling condition where fluid accumulates in the tissues and prevents organs from functioning properly. Berger stated that edema is often related to congestive heart failure and other concerns, such as lung and kidney diseases.
“There are a lot of factors that lead to heart-related issues,” Berger said. “It starts with inactivity. Always make sure to exercise and keep your blood moving. When we exercise, our heart rates go up and that makes the heart send more oxygenated blood to our skeletal muscles. Exercise keeps the heart healthy and burns off any stored energy. A good diet is also important. If you have a poor diet, more fat accumulates which causes more blood vessels to accumulate as well. This makes the heart work a lot harder to pump blood to so many vessels. So, when we take care of ourselves, we’re not just benefiting our cardiovascular system but benefiting our weight and our entire bodies.”
Berger said to stay healthy, people need to start asking questions. People need to ask themselves, “Am I healthy?” or “How can I change my lifestyle?” and put their answers into perspective.
Staying Aware
The American Heart Association reported many ways to stay informed and aware about heart health. One way, according to the AHA, is to advocate for policies and protective measures that mitigate cardiovascular risk factors and aid survivors of heart disease or stroke. This could include creating more smoke-free areas, funding tobacco-use prevention, supporting people’s access to Medicaid or welfare and supporting programs that encourage physical activity and beneficial diets for children.
Additionally, the AHA discussed that personal awareness can start with becoming aware of one’s lifestyle and making alterations to increase physical activity or healthy eating, all the while bettering heart health. Likewise, the AHA said that learning and teaching others how to keep their hearts healthy is incredibly beneficial, especially in a country where heart disease is one of the leading causes of death. To expand knowledge on heart health and learn what how to be healthy, the AHA website, http://www.Heart.org is a reliable resource.
Heart Health and Disease Prevention
Melanie Merrin, registered nurse, and assistant director of the Health Center at Berry, noted that heart disease is a broad term, but that it is the leading cause of death in the U.S. and has been for several years. She said that heart diseases include anything from heart failure, attacks, strokes and high blood pressure.
“We do see a lot of high cholesterol and high blood pressure even in young people and a lot of times it is undiagnosed. Young people your age don’t typically go for well checkups,” Merrin said. “Sometimes they go to the doctor for something else and it gets picked up but a lot of people your age are just undiagnosed with high blood pressure and have no idea.”
Merrin explained that college students are at the age where they can prevent future causes of heart diseases. Risk factors that contribute to heart disease include, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, smoking, excessive alcohol use, diabetes, being overweight and physical inactivity. Merrin stated that almost all of these factors are modifiable or at least manageable.
“The most important thing to do is, to be active, either maintain or reach a healthy weight, stop smoking, if you smoke. If you are overweight and inactive you increase your risks of type two diabetes, which contributes to heart disease,” Merrin said. “Sometimes blood pressure is modifiable, sometimes not, hypertension can be hereditary and regardless of lifestyle you have to take medication to manage it, but in order to do that you have to know that you have high blood pressure so that means you have to get it checked. One of the most important things to do is to know your health stats, know what your cholesterol is, know what your blood pressure is, and if those levels are high take measures to get them down.”
Merrin also said, “Some things that you can do now, at your age, to prevent heart disease is to get thirty minutes of physical activity every day, take steps to reach or maintain a healthy weight, manage stress in a healthy way, make sure to get 7 to 8 hours of sleep per night and try to cook and eat healthy low sodium meals. Sodium intake is closely tied to high blood pressure. High blood pressure, every minute that your blood pressure is high it causes damage to your organs, heart, kidneys, to your eyes. High blood pressure causes blindness, kidney failure, heart failure over the course of many years of blood pressure being high without being managed with either weight loss or medication. A lot of times that damage is irreversible once it’s done.”
Merrin also invites students to participate in the Health Center’s #OurHearts campaign for American Heart Month, which encourages students, faculty and staff to support each other in making healthier choices and habits for good heart health. Merrin stated that research shows that one is likely to choose healthier habits when friends and family are involved. This includes going on a walk with a friend or going to gym class.