American Heart Association Recommendations for Physical Activity - Infographic

The American Heart Association released an infographic on its recommendations for adult physical activity to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

With today's more sedentary lifestyle at home and at work, it is a challenge for most adults to be physically active. Regular physical activity reduces the risk of heart disease and stroke. Aside from that, it also reduces other risk factors such as high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, excess body weight and diabetes.

Any regular physical activity from climbing stairs, walking the dog, or just stretching can have have a positive effect on the body.

Dr. Russell Pate, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Exercise at the University of South Carolina notes that one of the great public health challenges of this century is building back physical activity back into a person's daily life. “Our bodies were designed to be physically active, and they don’t do well with long-term exposure to sedentary living. Lack of physical activity is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease”, he adds.

The infographic gives a general outline on the AHA's recommendations for regular physical activity that would help bring about a healthy adult lifestyle.

AHA Infographic: Stroke By The Numbers

The American Heart Association released Heart and Stroke Infographics to help spread the word about heart disease and stroke. These infographics visually represent information that can help educate the public on the prevention and treatment of heart related conditions.

The Stroke By The Numbers Infographic focuses on the stroke statistics in the United States as well as the reaction statistics of people at risk or experiencing a stroke attack. Stroke by the Numbers emphasizes the importance of being aware of the disease as well as identifying risk factors involved with it.

Stroke is Preventable, Treatable, and Beatable: A Stroke Infographic By The AHA and ASA

According to the American Heart Association (AHA), stroke is the leading cause of long term disability among adults in the U.S. Every 40 seconds, someone suffers a stroke. In the U.S alone, 795,000 Americans suffer a new or recurrent stroke each year.

Stroke is the fourth leading cause of death with someone dying of a stroke every four minutes. It kills about 128,000 people annually.

But stroke can be prevented. Statistics from the AHA and ASA show that 80% of strokes can be prevented. By simply lowering blood pressure by an average of 10 mmHg on both systolic and diastolic, the risk of a stroke and ischemic heart disease goes down by about 50%.

Also monitoring daily sodium intake and limiting it to just around 1500 mg of sodium per day can also help.

This infographic from the AHA and the ASA summarizes all this info in a visual way.

AHA Study Shows Eating Flavonoid Rich Berries Reduce Heart Attack Risk in Women by 30%

A study released by the American Heart Association shows that women who ate at least three servings of blueberries and strawberries per week reduce their risk of a heart attack by 30%.

Flavonoids are organic chemicals that are found in plants. These nutrients have beneficial effects on the human body. Chemicals that are found naturally in plants are called phytochemicals.

Berries, tea, apples, soy food, and red wine are some of the food that are rich in flavonoids.

The Zutphen Elderly Study, the Seven Countries Study and a cohort study in Finland show that consuming flavonoid has an inverse effect with coronary disease. Results of the study show that people who consumed about five to six cups of flavonoid-rich tea per day had a lower death rate from heart disease than people with a low intake of flavonoids.

The link between flavonoids and coronary heart disease like atherosclerosis (the accumulation of fat deposits in the arteries), may be due to the antioxidant properties of flavonoids. Flavonoids also have been shown to inhibit the aggregation and adhesion of platelets in blood, which may be another way they lower the risk of heart disease. Soy foods which contains isoflavones (a major flavonoid category) have been reported to lower plasma cholesterol and also to have effects similar to estrogen.

Being Aware and Preventing Heart Disease: An Infographic From The American Heart Association

The American Heart Association's mission is to build healthier lives free of heart disease.

As the saying goes, An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. With medical advancements on cardiovascular care, nothing beats taking good care of the heart. Knowing the risk factors, the steps to preventing heart disease, as well as making an effort to follow these steps can greatly improve one's well-being and lead a healthy life.

This is the first of a series of infographics released by the American Heart Association to promote heart care awareness: What Are My Chances Of Getting Heart Disease - 3 Questions.

American Heart Association Names Top 10 Advances in Heart Disease and Stroke Research for 2012

Since 1996, the American Heart Association has been compiling a list of the years top 10 major advances in heart disease and stroke research. They recently released the top 10 advances in heart disease and stroke research for 2012.

The American Heart Association advocates healthy living to reduce disability and deaths caused by cardiovascular disease and stroke. They publish a standard for providing basic and advanced life support, including standards for proper performance of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).

Technological especially medical advances in heart disease and research has grown leaps and bounds. With this, progress in the care, treatment and prevention of cardiovascular disease has also improved.

From 1999 to 2009, the death rate from cardiovascular disease (CVD) went down by 33%. But despite the decline, CVD still takes the lives of more than 2,150 Americans each day, an average of 1 death every 40 seconds.

In the same period, the death rate caused by stroke went down 37% and the actual number of stroke deaths declined by 23%. Stroke is still the 4th leading cause of death in the United States and the 1st leading cause of disability.

The AHA recently released the top 10 advances in heart disease and stroke research for 2012. These are:

1. Extended CPR saves lives
2. Converting “non beating” heart cells into “beating” heart cells
3. Biopsied heart cells improved heart function and reduced scars
4. “Disconnecting” the kidneys might be the key to treating high blood pressure
5. Progress for children in transplant bridging and Kawasaki Disease
6. Why children and adolescents should “just say no” to sugary drinks
7. Global impact: ECHO screening for rheumatic heart disease
8. Devices for stroke
9. Ideal cardiovascular health practices lead to longer life, lower risk
10. Bypass surgery vs. drug-coated stents for diabetes patients

A more detailed overview of the topics are covered below.