5 Home Remedies to Prevent Heart Disease
It’s becoming increasingly important to prevent heart disease. This is because this type of disease is a leading cause of death in developed countries.
Experts estimate that more than 82 million people in the United States have heart and blood vessel diseases; 9% of them are Hispanic. Every year, more than 813,000 people die from heart disease.
However, many natural remedies and healthy habits can help prevent heart disease. In this article, we’ll explain some alternatives to you. Before we do so, though, you need to know a little more about the etiology of these diseases and their characteristics.
In this sense, heart disease is a range of conditions that affect the heart. Some of the conditions experts classify as heart disease include:
- Blood vessel diseases
- Heart rhythm disorders, such as arrhythmia
- Congenital heart defects (defects people are born with)
The most common heart diseases
Today, people follow many unhealthy habits (not exercising, eating poor diets, and smoking, among others) that don’t protect them from these diseases. Here are the four most common heart diseases:
- Angina pectoris. When not enough blood flows in the heart due to obstruction problems in the coronary arteries, the patient feels a lot of chest pressure.
- Myocardial infarction, or heart attack. This occurs when blood flow to an area of the heart is interrupted, making it die. The patient who suffers from it feels chest pressure, dizziness, and has difficulty breathing.
- Arrhythmia. This is another of the most common heart diseases. It’s when the heart beats irregularly. It may beat slower than normal, which is known as bradycardia, or faster than normal, which is known as tachycardia. Also, it can cause intermittent arrhythmias that may cause dizziness, suffocation, paleness, and sweating, among other symptoms.
- Aneurysm. This occurs when the artery walls weaken and become inflamed in a specific area of the body.
Home remedies to prevent heart disease
1. Bananas and avocados
Eating foods rich in potassium, such as these two fruits, can help prevent heart disease. Experts have conducted studies on mice at risk of heart disease. These animals underwent echocardiograms and other diagnostic tests so the experts could take a closer look at their arteries.
They observed that the rodents fed a diet low in potassium showed higher rates of arterial stiffness due to a high concentration of calcium. This phenomenon is responsible for plaque buildup in the blood vessels or atherosclerosis. However, it isn’t yet entirely clear whether the finding produces the same results in humans.
2. Walnuts to prevent heart disease
Walnuts have many nutritional properties. Also, they’re rich in omega-3 fatty acids, meaning they have cardioprotective effects. However, experts warn about the risk of excessive consumption, as they have a lot of calories.
Omega-3 fatty acids are a polyunsaturated fatty acid that has beneficial effects on the cardiovascular system due to its anti-inflammatory, antithrombotic, and antiarrhythmic effects.
This article may also interest you: What Are Omega Fatty Acids 3, 6, and 9?
3. Onions
Onions contain a lot of water and are low in calories. They’re rich in fiber (which aids intestinal transit) and potassium and contain significant amounts of:
- Calcium
- Iron
- Magnesium
- Phosphorus
Also, onions are rich in B vitamins and also contain vitamin C and E (in lower amounts). The latter have antioxidant effects.
According to the Spanish Society of Community Nutrition, onions contain phytonutrients, such as quercetin, that can help prevent heart disease.
4. Garlic to prevent heart disease
Experts have concluded that garlic could lower total cholesterol and triglyceride levels. Also, they argue that garlic therapy could help patients at risk of cardiovascular disease.
Also, this vegetable can help lower high blood pressure and reduce artery hardening, a condition known as arteriosclerosis.
Read on to learn more: How to Unclog Your Arteries with Four Natural Remedies
5. Honey
A type of natural sugar honey contains could prevent heart disease. This sugar is trehalose. It’s a substance that activates a protein that causes immune cells to remove fatty plaque from arteries. Experts are still studying this effect.
As of yet, they’ve shown that trehalose was able to reduce the size of an atheromatous plaque in mice by 30%. However, more research is required to determine if it also has these effects in people.
Conclusion
Are you worried about suffering from heart disease? Are you in a risk group for these diseases?
If so, try the home remedies we shared in this article. However, if you’re under any medical treatment, consult your doctor first. They’ll tell you if you can take them.
All cited sources were thoroughly reviewed by our team to ensure their quality, reliability, currency, and validity. The bibliography of this article was considered reliable and of academic or scientific accuracy.
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- Institute of Medicine. (2011). A Nationwide Framework for Surveillance of Cardiovascular and Chronic Lung Diseases. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK83160/
- Mahmassani, H. A., Avendano, E. E., Raman, G., & Johnson, E. J. (2018). Avocado consumption and risk factors for heart disease: A systematic review and meta-analysis. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/nqx078
- Ried, K. (2020). Garlic lowers blood pressure in hypertensive subjects, improves arterial stiffness and gut microbiota: A review and meta-analysis. Experimental and Therapeutic Medicine, 19(2), 1472-1478.
- Sergin, I., Evans, T. D., Zhang, X., Bhattacharya, S., Stokes, C. J., Song, E., … & Razani, B. (2017). Exploiting macrophage autophagy-lysosomal biogenesis as a therapy for atherosclerosis. Nature communications, 8(1), 1-20.
- Sun, Y., Byon, C. H., Yang, Y., Bradley, W. E., Dell’Italia, L. J., Sanders, P. W., … Chen, Y. (2017). Dietary potassium regulates vascular calcification and arterial stiffness. JCI Insight. https://doi.org/10.1172/jci.insight.94920
- Zhao CN, Meng X, Li Y, et al. Fruits for Prevention and Treatment of Cardiovascular Diseases. Nutrients. 2017;9(6):598. Published 2017 Jun 13. doi:10.3390/nu9060598
