I’ve been terrified a number of times. The tornado that took the roof off the house in 1969 made me cringe at every thunderstorm for decades. Being tossed by a fast moving horse made me think I was about to meet my Maker. Nothing has scared me as badly as hearing that my husband has coronary artery disease and needs immediate angioplasty.

The symptoms weren’t gradual. He was in the habit of hiking every weekend, and was doing so when the first symptom appeared. It felt almost like a sore throat. After several days feeling this, he went to the doctor.

Even then, nothing would have been done, except for the fact that his father died from his third heart attack at the young age of 58. "Just to be sure…" He has had angioplasty three times and currently has four stents in his heart. I’ve had to sit in the cardiac intensive care waiting room multiple times and it is *not* a place I like being.

There are a couple of reasons for this article. The first one is to warn you about symptoms that may require immediate attention. Heart problems don’t necessarily start with chest pain in the general area of your heart.

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Living a fast pace life in the twenty first century has resulted to a lesser time to exercise and cooking healthy well-balanced meals. People have started to stimulate their bodies with caffeine and nicotine to cope up with a busy day ahead, and again need depressants like alcohol to slow down at the end of the day.

Sitting down to eat vegetables and fresh fruits have been replaced with stuffing themselves on the go with junk foods that are low in fiber and valuable polyunsaturated fat and instead fill in their diet with carbohydrates and saturated fat. People having this life style may more or less live longer on average than their ancestors, but most of them live their older years in chronic poor health, with medications to lower blood pressure and cholesterol to keep the blood from clotting. For short, they live their lives miserably with heart disease.

Given the prevalence of heart disease, there are many good reasons to take precaution and find ways to prevent heart disease.  Although years of research have been unable to exactly explain the cause of heart disease, risk factors have been identified that can help find ways to prevent heart disease. Continue reading →