Did you know that, according to the British Heart Foundation, every seven minutes someone dies of a heart attack in the UK?

The heart is the most vital organ in the body. It’s simply a muscle that, if given a healthy boost on a regular basis, will stay strong and serve you well throughout a long life like all the other muscles in your body. So, what are some things you can do to make sure that happens? Let’s get to the heart of keeping healthy, shall we?

Tip 1: Eat your way to a healthy heart

We hear all the time about the importance of diet for general health and there are a myriad of fads and opinions that seem only to steer us in circles. But when it comes to your heart health, we want to share the top words of diet wisdom about what to put on your plate.

Whole foods are the heartiest foundation

Whole foods are unprocessed foods that come directly from nature. Because they contain all of the nutrients nature intended, they help ensure better digestion, regulate our blood sugar levels, and help reduce carcinogens and harmful bacteria.

Whole foods include:

• fresh fruits and vegetables
• beans
• legumes
• whole grain varieties of bread, rice, and pasta.

If you aren’t much for complicated kitchen routines, here’s some great news. The closer your food is to its natural state, the better it is for your heart. Almost no cooking required!

Your heart loves a diet in balance

Once you have your whole foods sorted, add in a little bit of everything else to keep your diet varied and balanced. Eating one type of good food all the time is almost as bad as eating the wrong food all the time. Nutritionists advise to always eat foods in combination as the nutrients in one often help to absorb the nutrients in the other. Foods such as lean meat, fish, and even milk and cheese in moderation are important complements to your whole foods.

Of course, alcohol and foods that are high in salt, sugar, fat, and cholesterol are fine on occasion, but keep these to the smallest portions possible.

Tip 2: Take your heart muscle for a run around

As a muscle, nothing does more for the heart’s strength than a good workout that gets it pumping. When the heart pumps faster, it’s working harder and getting stronger. The great thing is that a heart-happy exercise can be almost anything that gets your heart going, whatever sport or activity you’re into.

Tip 3: Treat your heart right, whatever the season

Despite the timing of Valentine’s Day, winter can be rough on our hearts

When the days darken and cold weather settles in, all we want to do is hibernate. Overeating and a more sedentary lifestyle are both heart hazards in the winter. You can combat them if you:

• dedicate yourself to a winter sport you enjoy, such as skiing or ice skating
• take up a new winter sport you haven’t tried yet
• organize your day around lunchtime walks when the sun is highest
• join a running or walking group: winter is a time when you most need to be encouraged by others
• become a member of a local leisure center and exercise indoors if the cold is really not your cup of tea.

When summer rolls around, your heart’s desire is to enjoy the warm outdoors

Give your heart what it wants:

• continue your wintertime activity if it doesn’t require ice and snow
• take advantage of the season to swim at the seaside, play tennis, or bike ride with family
• load your shopping cart with the bountiful whole foods of summer
• take advantage of sunnier days to get where you’re going with a brisk walk instead of a cruise in the car
• keep your heart and body hydrated.

Tip 4: Monitor your heart in minutes without stress at home

With all this healthy eating and heart-pumping exercise, you deserve to know how well you’re looking after your heart with real diagnostics you can capture right in your own home.

The Bio Cuff is a cardiovascular heart monitor and blood pressure cuff in a single, easy-to-use device. It measures the stiffness of arteries, which is one of the most critical early warning signs of heart attack. When our arteries stiffen with age or disease, our hearts have to work even harder to pump blood throughout our bodies. In under a minute and at the touch of a button, the Bio-Clip Cuff can assess whether artery walls have started to stiffen and by how much.

Previously, such evaluations could be done only in clinics or medical offices, often involving invasive medical procedures that cost time, money, and stress. The innovative technology behind the Bio Cuff means that what you need to know to protect your heart is just a button press away.

Find out more about Antiaging Nutrition’s Bio Cuff

Tip 5: Supplement your diet for a healthy heart

Antiaging Nutrition brings you two more ways to help protect your heart that are ideal complements to a robust exercise plan and sensible diet.

Aminoguanidine

Aminoguanidine is a supplement that has been specially formulated to inhibit glycosylation in the body, a process during which glucose and proteins bind together that produces harmful nutritional imbalances in our body, one of which is a spike in bad cholesterol. Glycosylation literally ages the body faster than nature intended and has been proven to be a direct cause of many conditions such as diabetes, cataracts, vascular disease, and cancer.

Resveratrol

Resveratrol is an antioxidant-rich supplement that can help increase your HDL, or good cholesterol. It can also help you control your weight by reducing glucose and insulin in your blood and speeding up your metabolism.

Find out more about Antiaging Nutrition’s heart supplements