SHA Dietitian Shares Ways to Reduce Risks During Heart Month

When it comes to matters of the heart, Valentine's Day isn't the only thing the month of February has going for it. It's also Heart Health Month in Canada.

Every hour, 12 Canadians over the age of 20 die of heart disease. In fact, 2.4 million Canadians, about 1 in 12, are living with heart disease. 

Dietitian Laura Thompson with the Saskatchewan Health Authority shares some ways people can reduce their risk. 

“Lifestyle risk factors are within our control,” she said. “Unhealthy diet, not enough exercise, unhealthy weight, smoking or chewing tobacco, heavy drinker or binge drinker, stress, recreational drug use, and then also if you use birth control or hormone replacement therapy.”

She added the factors you can't control include your age, family history, and even ancestral heritage. Indigenous peoples and those of African and Asian descent have a higher risk of heart disease. Thompson said there are also medical factors that increase the risk of heart disease.

“Medical conditions are things like your high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, atrial fibrillation or irregular heart rhythms, pre-eclampsia - which is high blood pressure during pregnancy - and sleep apnea,” she said.

Chest discomfort, squeezing, pain or burning or heaviness in the chest area, excessive sweating, upper body discomfort, nausea or vomiting, shortness of breath, light-headedness or dizziness can all be symptoms of an impending heart attack.

Around 50,000 Canadians suffer from a stroke each year. If you or someone you love is having a stroke, could you tell? Thompson shared an easy way to remember the symptoms of a stroke.

“If you think of the word FAST, ‘F’ standing for Face, so looking for any drooping in the face. ‘A’ standing for Arms, is the person able to raise both of their arms, ‘S’ standing for Speech, so looking for any slurring or jumbling of speech, and then ‘T’ for Time, so calling 9-1-1 right away,” she said.

Thompson shared some ways to reduce the risk factors.

“Life style factors like healthy eating, some regular exercise, those also will really help to reduce your risk as well. So those risk factors that are within our control, just trying to achieve the optimal targets for each of those will help to really reduce your risk,” she said.

Either way, if you’re smoking or not, it’s good to know where you’re at with regard to heart disease.

“There’s a tool that we have or can use to assess or determine your risk of heart disease. It’s called the Framingham Risk Score,” she explained. “It’s a gender-specific algorithm or scoring tool, that helps to calculate your 10-year risk of developing heart disease.”

“Based on your score, it will categorize you as low-risk, moderate risk or high-risk. Based on that, it helps your physician or practitioner to determine the best treatment option for you to reduce your risks.”