February is Heart Month, Here’s How to Keep it Healthy

We are all guilty of not taking care of our bodies.  We'll buy a used car, a fixer-upper home, take a cheap vacation to, oh I don't know, Monroe Louisiana.

But when we're due for that annual check-up, the excuses come a flyin'.  Not enough time, and don't have any money top the list.

Do your heart a favor and use "Heart Month" as an excuse TO DO SOMETHING!  Tell me you know not one person in your life that does not have some symptoms of cardiovascular disease.

The Texas Department of State Health Services has attached the moniker "danger zone" to right here in East Texas.  Yup!  Stats from four years ago say that 29 percent of reported Angelina County deaths were PREVENTABLE, with diabetes, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure attributing to the mortality rate.

Still not frightened?  According to the American Heart Association, nearly 150,000 people - UNDER age 65 - die each year from heart related illnesses, with one out of twenty under age 40 having cardiology issues.

The basics have been around for years now:

(1) Give up tobacco, and do your best not to ingest second hand smoke.

(2) At least 30 minutes of daily exercise.

(3) Keep your weight in proportion to height.

(4) Maintain consistent and acceptable blood pressure readings, and watch the fatty food intake (hard to do here in Texas, I know, with all the mouth watering eats at our fingertips).

Heart disease may be a leading cause of death, but that doesn't mean you have to accept it as your fate.