Food, Health

Food And Drinks For A Healthy Heart

WATER

Cleanleap

The average adult human body is made up of as much as 60% water. For overall health, keeping the body hydrated is critical. When considering what to drink for overall health, your first and best choice will always be water. Even for heart health, the best drink is still water. When the human body is dehydrated, there are a number of adverse effects that create a chain reaction toward bad heart conditions.

For starters, when the water composition of the blood is low, the blood volume decreases. When blood volume is lower than it should be, the brain detects it and knows there will be less blood to pump the needed amount of oxygen throughout the body. The brain’s defense mechanism to protect it against insufficient oxygen supply is to trigger the heart to beat faster, so that the blood circulates faster throughout the body. Imagine having less workers (the blood) having to still deliver the same amount of oxygen across the same space (the human body). This means the heart will have to work harder. Furthermore, when there is less water in the bloodstream, the blood becomes thicker, and therefore harder to pump. To make matters worse, less water absorbed in the body will mean the blood vessels will be stiffer than normal, which is also going to make it harder for the blood to circulate across the body.

Be mindful to always stay hydrated. Humans are constantly losing water. This happens when you sweat, urinate, defecate, even when you exhale. You don’t always notice yourself losing water, and the process can go unnoticed especially if your attention is focused on something else. Therefore, the best way to avoid getting hydrated is to consciously schedule yourself to hydrate proactively. If you get thirsty, that is the body’s first sign that you are needing to get a drink of water to prevent going into further dehydration.