Heart health. How to defend your heart

Pressure? Don´t panic!

Please don´t panic. This is not a joke but a serious advice. Find your own strategies to calm down and to deal with stress. When you’re under stress, your brain produces hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol that put your body on alert. As a result, your pulse quickens and blood pressure rises. In the early days of mankind, this physical reactions prepared our body to deal with difficult situations by confronting it or by running away from it – the so-called “fight or flight” response. Nowadays, stressful situations often remain unmanaged and stress becomes chronic. Chronic stress may results in constantly elevated heart rate and blood pressure eventually damaging the artery walls and increasing the risk of heart disease. Bad sleep is a second danger of chronic stress. In a study people who slept seven hours a night had less calcium in their arteries than people who slept only five hours. And this is considered as an early sign of heart diseases. (By the way: Too much sleep like nine hours is bad for your heart, too.)

But what can we do against the stress in hour life? We can´t give up our jobs and just lay back. But we can learn to deal with stress in a proper way. For some people it is yoga for others it is jogging or singing. Learn to meditate, learn to organise your life better or turn down your desire to be perfect. Everybody has to find his own way. But it is important to find it. Sometimes there is even some help from nature. Plant extracts like gingko or lemon balm can help support your cognitive performance and to stay in a calm and positive mood.

Food. The good fats and the evil ones

Food can do both: Kill your heart or rescue it. And it is your choice what it does. Of course burgers are tasty and convenience food is really convenient. But they are full of saturated fatty acids and the bad LDL-Cholesterol, building up plaque in the arteries which leads circulatory disturbances, heart attack and coronary heart disease. But there is also food that´s able to defend your heart, for example fat fish like salmon or sardines, full of omega-3-fatty acids. Amino acids, like l-arginine or compounds found in beetroot juice, cocoa seeds or mango fruit for instance are used by our body to produce nitric oxide, a molecule that relaxes and widens blood vessels and thus increases the oxygen and nutrient supply to the cells. That means: Keep a healthy diet with much fish, fruits and vegetables. Or support your body with food supplements containing these natural heart savers.

Move. Before heart disease gets you

We sit too much and don´t move enough. This fact is really threatening our hearts. It is not only because we don´t burn enough calories and get fat, it is also bad because the blood circulation and the endothelial blood flow are not stimulated. Endothelial blood flow is quite important to provide oxygen and nutrients to our organs. If the heart is not sufficiently supplied it can´t work properly. We feel a pain in the breast or feel breathless, when it comes to physical effort. This often is a result of a reduced capacity of the heart to pump enough blood to our body. Breathlessness can be the first sign of coronary heart disease. The best way to avoid this phenomenon is to get up as often as possible. Experts recommend at least 30 minutes per day of physical activity and strongly advise you not to keep on sitting the rest of the day. Get up, walk to the printer, use the stairs instead of the elevator, move. It is the best medicine for nearly all processes taking place in your body, especially your heart.

Heart Health. A growing market worldwide

As consumers are gaining more and more awareness regarding cardiovascular health and are willing to make proactive lifestyle changes, the interest in heart health ingredients has also surged. Consequently, the global heart health ingredient market is expected to grow at an annual growth rate of more than 7% until 2020 (PR Newswire 2016).

Vital Solutions. Research to save your heart- Bluenesse® & Careflow®

With Careflow® and Bluenesse® Vital Solutions has developed two natural and scientifically proven ingredients targeting various important factors for a healthy heart. Bluenesse, an exclusive lemon balm extract, supports the ability to cope with occasional stress and to stay in a calm and positive mood. Careflow, a fruit powder made of a special variety of Indian mango, has been shown to improve endothelial function and microcirculation.