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Heart disease is the number one cause of death in the US; we understand the risk factors for it, and there are 7 key steps you can take to reduce that risk. Here is a risk calculator that will give you your 10 year risk (and test how that might fall as key problems are addressed).
1. Treat the treatable causes like hypertension, high cholesterol, smoking, diabetes, and obesity.
2. Get exercise: the most powerful way to reduce your cardiac risk based upon key studies. And more exercise leads to additional benefits.
3. Optimize your sleep. Studies show benefit from getting 7-8 hours/night, and having sleep regularity (similar sleep times each night).
4. Think about your nutrition. weight control impacts risk of diabetes and risk of heart disease. The story on type of fats is complex with no differences shown in studies of low vs. high fat diets.
5. Add some mind-body work to your life. Although there are no long term studies demonstrating that yoga/breath work/meditation lowers mortality, short term studies show that yoga reduces blood pressure (an important cardiac risk factor)
6. Consider taking a sauna: studies are pretty clear that taking a sauna (perhaps 3x/week for 20' each time) is associated with lower cardiac risk of sudden death.
7. Build and maintain strong social relationships. Large differences in mortality between those with and without strong social relationships.
