Happy Valentine's Day & Heart Health Awareness Month!

At Arizona Internists, we have fallen in love with your heart health! February is Heart Health Awareness Month so we wanted to take a moment to discuss lifestyle and prevention strategies that can help lower your risk of heart disease.

According to the American Heart Association, cardiovascular disease, including heart disease and stroke, is the leading cause of death in the US with over 700,000 deaths annually. That is one person every 33 seconds! The good news is that up to 90% of heart disease can be prevented with lifestyle changes.

We'd love to help lower your risk for heart disease and wanted to share the American Heart Association’s "Essential 8" - eight key measures shown to reduce cardiovascular disease:

Eat Better: Try to choose whole foods, fruits and vegetables, lean protein, nuts, and seeds, and cook most of your meals in heart healthy oils such as olive oil.
Be More Active: Aim for 150 minutes of moderate or 75 minutes of vigorous physical activity every week. Walking is great choice for moderate activity, but do any activity that you love! If your health limits your ability to be active, try increasing your activity with stretches, chair exercises or yoga to keep up your balance, flexibility and strength.
Quit Tobacco: The use of inhaled nicotine, including traditional cigarettes, e-cigarettes, and vaping, is the leading cause of preventable death in the U.S., and contributes to about a third of all deaths from heart disease. Reach out if you would like options that can help you quit!
Get Healthy Sleep: Getting a good night’s sleep every night is vital to cardiovascular health. Adults should aim for an average of 7-9 hours. Research shows too little or too much sleep can both be associated with heart disease.
Manage Weight: Maintaining a healthy weight has many benefits. Body mass index (BMI) measures weight in relation to height. The optimal BMI for most adults ranges from 18.5 to less than 25. We would be happy to partner with you to work towards an optimal weight for you.
Control Cholesterol: High levels of non-HDL, or “bad” cholesterol, can lead to heart disease. We can discuss non-HDL goals for your health and work on reaching them with you.
Manage Blood Sugar: Most of our food breaks down to glucose (or blood sugar), which our bodies use as energy. High blood sugar levels over time can damage your heart, kidneys, eyes, and nerves. Monitoring hemoglobin A1c, or average blood sugars, can help identify pre-diabetes or diabetes and working to keep your blood sugar and A1c in goal ranges can prevent many complications in the long run.
Manage Blood Pressure: Keeping your blood pressure within the goal range can keep you healthier longer. Monitoring your blood pressure and maintaining it in a range that is good for your health profile is something we will work closely on with you.

If you have a personal or family history of heart disease, we can recommend additional screening and testing to monitor your heart health closely and lower your risk.

Wishing you a very Heart Healthy Year,

Michael Germain, M.D. & Danielle Wicklow, M.D.