For all you guys out there who might be prone to heart disease, here are 15 ways to prevent heart disease.
1. Get your daily B vitamins. A study at the Cleveland Clinic found that men with diets low in B vitamins were more than twice as likely to develop heart disease as men with higher levels in their systems.
2. Go fishing for tuna. Omega-3 fats in tuna help strengthen heart muscle, lower blood pressure, and prevent clotting—as well as reduce levels of potentially deadly inflammation in the body. Plus, tuna's high in protein. Research shows that consuming more protein may lower a man's risk of heart disease by nearly 26 percent.
3. Add ground flaxseed to your food. It's a natural source of omega-3s, for men who don't like fish.
4. Fartlek! "Losing as little as 5 to 10 percent of your body weight will reduce your visceral-fat stores by 25 to 40 percent," says Jean-Pierre Despres, a professor of Human Nutrition at Laval University in Quebec City. A study in Medicine 'and Science in Sports and Exercise found that doing fartlek alternating speeds throughout your run—helps you lose weight faster than moving at a steady pace.
5. Take up rowing. A study in the European Journal of Applied Physiology found that, compared with running, rowing uses more muscle and causes your heart to pump more blood through the body, resulting in greater overall gains in cardiovascular fitness.
6. Schedule a flu shot. A New England Journal of Medicine study found that people who'd been vaccinated against the flu were also 19 percent less likely to be hospitalized for heart disease than people who hadn't gotten the shot.
7. Be a sponge. Loma Linda University researchers found that drinking five or more 8-ounce glasses of water a day could help lower your risk of heart disease by up to 60 percent—exactly the same drop you get from stopping smoking, lowering your LDL (bad) cholesterol numbers, exercising, or losing a little weight.
8. Eat grapefruit. One a day can reduce arterial narrowing by 46 percent, lower your bad-cholesterol
level by more than 10 percent, and help drop your blood pressure by more than 5 points.
9. Order garlic bread. In addition to lowering cholesterol and helping to fight off infection, eating garlic may help limit damage to your heart after a heart attack or heart surgery. Researchers in India found that animals that were fed garlic regularly had more heart-protecting antioxidants in their blood than animals that weren't.
10. Top your toast. Blueberry jam is a good source of quercetin—an antioxidant that Finnish researchers believe may improve heart health by preventing the buildup of the free radicals that can damage arterial walls and allow plaque to penetrate.
11. Scramble an egg. They're relatively low in saturated fat, and they're packed with betaine, a compound that helps lower homocysteine levels in the blood by as much as 75 percent. Eggs are one of the few good food sources of betaine.
12. Take chromium. According to new research from Harvard, men with low levels of chromium in their systems are significantly more likely to develop heart problems. You need between 200 and 400 micrograms of chromium per day—more than you're likely to get from your regular diet. "Look for a supplement labeled chromium picolinate—it's the most easily absorbed by the body," says Gary Evans, Ph.D., a chromium expert.
13. Do more crunches. A study of 8,000 Canadians found that individuals who could do the most sit-ups in one minute were also the least likely to die over a period of 13 years. The reason? Strong abs equal more muscle and less belly fat, and the less abdominal fat you have, the lower your risk of heart disease becomes.
14. Don't double dip. Heart patients who took ibuprofen along with their aspirin had a nearly 75 percent higher risk of premature death than those taking only aspirin, according to a study, conducted in Scotland, of more than 7,000 participants.
15. Pair up. Married men are less likely to die of heart disease than bachelors. Toronto-based researchers studied 100 men and women with mild high blood pressure and found that after three years of marriage, the happily married men had healthier hearts than their unmarried brothers. Just choose your bride wisely, or your heart will be broken and sick.