LE BUGUE, France, July 16 (UPI) -- Hardly a week goes by without some food or other being discovered to have some magical property to protect against heart disease. Cocoa is among the latest, with polyphenol, its antioxidant-like chemical lowering bad cholesterol and raising the good.
654,092 deaths in the U.S. in 2004 were due to heart disease, up from 502,189 in 2001. It's the biggest killer of men and women in the Western world.
But would you recognize a heart attack if you were beginning to have one?
You may feel nauseous. Or breathless and dizzy. You may become sweaty. More than likely you'll get a heavy, restrictive pain in the middle of your chest that feels worse than indigestion and could spread down yours arms and up your neck to your jaw.
A blood clot will have blocked an artery round the heart, preventing oxygen from reaching the pumping muscle.
If you think it will go away and wait to call an ambulance, your chances of survival will decrease rapidly. Interrupted blood flow to the heart has to be restored as fast as possible.
But you can do so much to avoid getting to this frightening point. And you don't need to learn by rote the names of food compounds that appear in the news almost weekly. Just be sensible (this is not a euphemism for boring) with what you eat.
Follow a diet high in fresh fruits and vegetables. You also need starches, like rice and wholewheat bread. So you don't need to go on that famous diet -- you don't need to deprive yourself of pasta. Just eat it in moderation.
If you make part of your diet oily fish like salmon, herring and mackerel (smoked mackerel pressed into toasted wholewheat bread with grindings of black pepper) is delicious), you will be getting a good supply of Omega-3 fatty acids. These are the protective fats you want.
The ones you have to avoid are the fats in dairy products and red meats. Equally, baked goods, like pastries, cookies and cakes are a heart risk.
Watch how much salt you eat. It's hidden in prepared sauces, soups and ready-meals, and in canned and processed foods in far greater quantities than your taste buds might recognize.
Not only can high levels of salt contribute to increasing the risk of heart disease but, like too much alcohol, can raise your blood pressure. This in turn can lead to heart disease.
Lower your cholesterol with a diet high in fiber absorbed from dried beans, pulses and lentils (all cheap and filling), cereals -- and those fruits and vegetables again.
Cholesterol's job in the body is to produce essential chemicals and keep your cells functioning healthily. Too much, though, and you'll raise your risk of heart disease. Your liver draws cholesterol from the saturated fats in the foods you eat.
The fat and the lean of red meat contain cholesterol, so does milk and milk products. It's in prawns, shellfish and egg yolks, though not in egg white or any kind of plant foods, like fruits and vegetables, grains, nuts and seeds. There is less in chicken and other bird meat but rich amounts in their skin.
Many ready-made baked goods contain cholesterol because of the butter and milk they are made with, though most food producers are slowly changing over from trans-fats like lard and palm oil in their products.
Couch potatoes are at great risk of heart disease. Get off your behind and exercise. You don't need to spend agonizing hours in the gym, hating every minute so much you know you won't be keeping up this regime. Pick something you can learn to enjoy, like walking at a brisk pace. Go cycling round the park, dig a garden or saw wood.
If you take care of your heart, your heart will stand a better chance of taking care of you. Follow the guidelines above, and you'll probably also lose weight without thinking about it.
In the group of cereals you should include in your diet are porridge oats. Not only do they give you a sustaining healthy breakfast, they also make a terrific crust for oily fish.
Brush each side of a fillet of shad, mackerel or herring with a little oil. Press each side into a large handful of porridge oats smoothed out across a plate then broil both sides under a medium hot broiler till the fish is opaque.
You can stuff a whole fish with the following, too, before broiling or baking.
--Herb stuffing for fish for 2
--3 large scallions, thinly sliced
--2 ounces porridge oats
--grated zest of a washed lemon
--1 tablespoon lemon juice
--1 tablespoon chopped flat-leaf parsley
--1 tablespoon chopped chives
--1 teaspoon chopped mint
--1 tablespoon olive oil
--Warm the olive oil then gently soften the scallions in it.
--Off the heat, stir in the remaining ingredients, season to taste and stuff into the two fish before broiling or baking till opaque.
