WHAT A HEART-HEALTHY DIET SHOULD ACHIEVE
Most people consider heart-healthy to be low fat and low sodium. These are good recommendations, at least for a start. To enable you to plan your heart-healthy diet more intentionally, it would be good to first know what it is you are trying to achieve for your heart. It is important to know what it is that would be keeping your heart beating in a healthy way.
The heart is a muscle. As a muscle, its job is to contract and relax repeatedly, and in doing so it keeps pumping blood through its arteries, veins, atria, and ventricles. Ultimately the heart’s repeated contraction and relaxation cycles pump this blood all across the body’s many arteries, capillaries, and veins.
Because the heart’s primary task is pumping blood across the many blood vessels in the heart itself and throughout the body, it goes to say that a heart-healthy diet should contribute to keeping these blood vessels clear of any obstructions. This means either the diet does not contribute to clogging up the blood vessels, or prevents the clogging up of blood vessels, or it helps unclog the blood vessels in case some clogging has built up.
Because the heart is a muscle, a heart-healthy diet should also strengthen the heart, thereby contributing to its muscular action. There are some vitamins and minerals that need to be in good balance in the body to ensure that muscles, including the heart, perform in peak condition.
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