Muscle Helps Zap Stress Effects
Stress can ratchet up your blood pressure, but a fit physique might cancel out the effects.
It’s true: Being a well-muscled machine helps your blood pressure return to normal faster following a stressful event.
Fat and Your Stress Response
The more body fat you pack, the more trouble your body will have in getting your blood pressure cooled down after stress. And this relationship probably explains, in part, why stress and obesity are connected to high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease.
Easy Steps to Steadier Blood Pressure
Few things age your arteries faster than high blood pressure, so keep yours under control with these simple steps:
Opt for meals that are more in line with the medically proven DASH Diet.
Get moving.
Buy a tape measure.
Large Waistlines Raise Risk of Dying From Heart Disease, Stroke
Get out your tape measure! Your waist size can offer valuable information about your risk of dying of heart disease or stroke in the next decade — beyond that provided by traditional risk factors such as LDL cholesterol or whether you smoke, researchers report.
In a study of more than 33,000 men, every 2-inch increase in waist size raised the risk of dying of cardiovascular disease by up to 17% over the next 10 years, independent of other risk factors.
“Knowing your waist circumference can enhance cardiovascular disease prediction,” says researcher Radim Jurca, PhD, an exercise physiologist at the Cooper Institute in Dallas.
Doctors who heard the results at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association (AHA) agree. Nieca Goldberg, MD, an AHA spokeswoman and heart specialist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, says she routinely measures her patients’ waistlines.
“But you can start by doing it at home and bringing the measurements into your doctor,” she tells WebMD. “All you need is a tape measure.”
For more health information, browse Encouraging Health.
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