Increased incidence of heart disease: The fault lies in what you eat

Dubbed as the silent killer, heart disease is claiming younger lives these days. People as young as 40 year old are succumbing to heart attacks. So, what has led to this shift in the incidence of heart attack? Is it the lifestyle? Or is it the growing stress? Or is it the small nuclear family set up?

Whatever may be the external reason, what goes inside the body largely determines how our health system will be. The more our body is fed processed food, the more it is likely to succumb to their effects.

Conclusively, what we eat snowballs its effect on our body. The more our body is fed unhealthy food, the quicker is the effect.

Read: How to know your chest pain is not due to acidity but a condition called angina

So, the next time when you sit down to have your meal take note of the following things:

Ideally an adult should consume no less than 5 grams per day. The World Health Organisation (WHO) says that 2.5 million deaths could be prevented each year if global salt consumption were reduced to the recommended level.

Though sodium is important for our body and the main source of it is through our diet, overconsumption is lethal to the body in the long run. As per a research study on an average Indians consume 11 grams of salt per day which is more than twice the WHO recommendation.

Cardiovascular diseases are one of the leading causes of death in the country.

As per the American Heart Association only 5-6% of the daily fat intake should be saturated fats.

Touted as the bad fats, saturated fats are known to cause potential harm to individuals. This is the reason why doctors recommend to switch to low fat foods after seeing the age and blood pressure of an individual.

Saturated fats are mostly found in animal products and several oils.

Adults should not have more than 30 grams of sugar per day. Eating too much sugar is lethal to the heart and subsequently to life. A sugar coated diet will definitely pose a threat for the heart, say several research studies.

A study done for over 15 years, found that those who had sugar 25% or more of their daily calories were twice as likely to die from heart complications than those who had less sugar.

Added sugar, which are found in sodas, bottled drinks, pastries and cakes, are the biggest threat to heart.

Due to less sleep, overconsumption of alcohol, indulgence in tobacco and following a fast paced life without giving proper rest to the mind and the body contribute to an increased risk of heart diseases.

Experts have always emphasized the importance of sleeping for at least 8 hours every day. As one grows one needs to be careful about the number of hours one sleeps.

Apart from that unhealthy lifestyle habits like drinking and smoking should also be cut down completely in order to keep the heart healthy.

Indulgence on processed food, dependency on ready-to-eat meals is commonly seen these days, which pretty much explains why heart attack cases have become so prevalent among the younger population.

Including a self-sufficient meal pattern in daily life, seems to be too much for youngsters. The lifestyle pattern has changed so much, thanks to social media and random ads, that young people do not hesitate buying a packet of chips, and do not realise that a packet of non-salty and raw nuts would be much better for them.

The level of physical activity has minimized to a great extent which again opens up a big avenue for serious diseases like heart attack.

In order to keep big health complications at bay, it is essential to keep small habits under control. Next time when you load your food cart with 5 packets of chips, remove four and add a big packet of nuts instead.

Remember, it all depends on what you eat and how you eat. What you provide the body will pay you back.