OH! Magazine - Australian Version June 2016 | Page 13

( Nutrition )

TOP TIPS FOR

DR
JOANNA

CARDIOVASCULAR
HEALTH
Dr Joanna shares her health and nutrition tips
for achieving optimum cardiovascular health.
he wonderful thing about health
today is that we can all be much
more proactive. The area of lifestyle
medicine has a major focus on prevention,
rather than waiting until we’re sick before
we do anything.

T

In the area of cardiovascular health we
have a wealth of information regarding
the risk factors, along with the lifestyle
and dietary changes we can make to
lower our risk.
Firstly, when was the last time you had a
blood pressure check? High blood
pressure, technically called ‘hypertension’,
is extremely damaging to blood vessels
around your body and increases your risk
of heart problems and stroke.
If you do have high blood pressure your
doctor may prescribe medication, but
there are several things that you can do
yourself to lower it. For example, if you
are overweight, losing even a little weight
will help. You can also reduce your salt
intake and up your potassium; the balance
between these two minerals is essential
for blood pressure control. To cut down
your salt intake use herbs and spices to
flavour food when cooking, rather than
adding salt. Additionally, eat fewer highly
processed packaged foods and fast food
as these tend to be very salty. And in
terms of your potassium intake, you can
boost this by eating loads of plant foods
(i.e. veggies and fruit).
Managing your stress levels is also
important for cardiovascular health. This
is because chronic stress has a significant
effect on your blood pressure. Meditation,

breathing exercises, yoga, achieving a
good work/life balance and finding joy in
your day can all help you to better manage
stress.
Another factor if you have high blood
pressure is your alcohol intake. While one
or two drinks a day can benefit
cardiovascular health, more than this is
detrimental to blood pressure.
Secondly have a blood cholesterol check.
You want to know not just your total
cholesterol level, but the levels of LDL
(the so-called ‘bad’ cholesterol), and HDL
(the ‘good’ cholesterol). Essentially we
want to lower LDL cholesterol if it is too
high, and boost your levels of HDL
cholesterol because it is protective.
Dietary changes can make a big difference
here as well.
The key steps are to avoid all sources of
trans fats. Trans fats do not occur to any
great extent in nature, but are created
during food processing. You’ll commonly
find them in foods such as commercial
pies, pastry, biscuits and cakes, many
fast foods.
Despite the recent controversy over
saturated fats, we do know that swapping
unsaturated fats for saturated fats does
help to lower LDL and raise HDL
cholesterol. So choose good fats such as
extra virgin olive oil, avocado, nuts, seeds
and oily fish, while cutting back on butter,
fatty and processed meat, pastries and
so on.
Fibre can also help you to improve your
cholesterol profile. I found a supplement

drink called ‘beta-heart’ is an easy way to
get the specific fibre called ‘beta-glucan’
that research