Diet an important factor in maintaining good heart health
Esther Armagost, of Butler, attended a talk at the Butler Area Public Library on May 31 to learn how to construct a diet that will best support good heart and cardio health.
She said she is trying to be more conscious of her health and wanted to hear from a professional from the Jean B. Purvis Community Health Center.
“I just improved my cholesterol, and I want to keep it that way,” Armagost said.
The Butler library has scheduled several talks with the staff of the community health center this summer, and prior to the heart health talk last week was a presentation regarding ticks and Lyme disease and their prominence in Pennsylvania.
Linda Reichart, health and wellness director at the Purvis health center, led the talk last week, and said many Americans are living with high blood pressure and don’t even know it.
She said a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report showed that 116 million Americans have hypertension, which can go unnoticed because its symptoms encompass many bodily functions that could be caused by other conditions.
“Hypertension is called the silent killer because it doesn't feel like we have high blood pressure until it gets worse,” Reichart said. “Then the alarm bells go off when they take your blood pressure. It can cause a stroke, it affects your brain, heart, it can cause heart failure, blindness ... it also can cause sexual disfunction.”
In her talk, Reichart told attendees about the DASH diet, which includes seven steps people could use to improve their blood pressure. The steps include following the DASH eating plan, reducing sodium intake, maintaining a healthy weight, drinking alcohol only in moderation, quitting smoking, taking prescribed drugs as directed and keeping your doctor informed about diet and exercise.
While it can be difficult for people to even start a new diet, Reichart encouraged attendees to begin by keeping a food journal to keep track of daily intake.
“We all eat the same types of foods, we just might make them a little different,” Reichart said. “When you start thinking about that and the DASH diet and what is a serving, then you start tweaking it. You can tweak to eating less fat, less salt.”
According to the American Heart Association, a heart-healthy diet emphasizes fruits, vegetables, whole grains, poultry, fish, nuts and nontropical vegetable oils, while limiting red and processed meats, sodium and sugar-sweetened foods and beverages.
Reichart reinforced recommendations given by the heart association and added that making incremental improvements to one’s routine can make a difference. Staying hydrated is one of the easiest starting points, Reichart said.
“I recommend eight to 10 cups of water a day,” she said. “Think about ways you can make little changes. Small changes are more likely to become permanent.”
The community health clinic is doing several talks at the Butler Area Public Library this summer, and announcements and information on upcoming presentations can be found on the library’s website.
“They had wanted someone to do a talk about heart health,” Reichart said of the library. “We are going to do some more talks here.”
At the end of her presentation, Reichart had members of the audience assemble a meal — either breakfast, lunch or dinner — that fit the lessons they learned from the talk. The aim was to create meals with balanced nutrition that captured the portions and servings taught by the DASH diet.
Armagost also got her blood pressure taken by Reichart following the talk. She said the talk was helpful, and she hopes to take the information learned from the session to maintain her heart health.
“I’m trying to stay healthy,” Armagost said. “I think I eat pretty well; I must be doing something right.”
