Public Engagement & Impact
Medical research has come a long way in both preventing and treating heart disease. But a large portion of the prevention has to come from the individual.
That’s why top U-M cardiologists lent their expertise to a Feb. 26 #UMichChat on Facebook Live to celebrate Heart Health Month.
Eagle
Dr. Kim Eagle, director of the Frankel Cardiovascular Center, and cardiologists Dr. Sara Saberi and Dr. James Froehlich cut through all the hype about branded diets and workout fads and focused on three central themes — move around more, eat well, and get checkups.
Good habits formed in childhood pay dividends throughout life, as U-M doctors have discovered through Project Healthy Schools, said Eagle.
“What we’ve found is if kids are given a choice of healthier food and also movement, they embrace that,” he said. “They celebrate it and feel better.”
Parents also play a role in developing these habits, not as much by direct teaching but by modeling healthy behavior and choices, Froehlich said.
“These are incredibly impressionable times and the habit of healthy eating and pursuing activity is important to establish early,” he said.
Froehlich
Eating habits are much harder to change in the teenage years, Saberi said. But there are more physical activities open to teenagers, such as organized sports and clubs.
“We know that children of parents who are physically active are later in life more active themselves,” she said.
Saberi
How much exercise or movement is the right amount? A good goal would be 150 minutes of cumulative moderate exercise in a week. If you’re just getting started, even 15 minutes of brisk walking a day will help, Saberi said.
“One of the ideas to embrace is that you never have time to exercise. You have to make it,” Froehlich said. But there are ways to fit it into your daily routine, such as walking more instead of taking the bus or taking the stairs instead of the elevator.
As for diet, the Facebook audience had questions about keto, Atkins, and other popular eating plans. But the U-M doctors said it’s easier to keep it simple: eat more vegetables and fewer carbohydrates, and cook your own food as often as possible.
“Don’t eat anything your grandmother or great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food,” Froelich said.
When students first go away to college, they often find themselves overwhelmed — and people under stress tend to use food as a crutch, Eagle said. It’s important to be aware of that, and mitigate “stress eating” by having fruits and vegetables instead of chips or candy as snacks, and by walking to class whenever possible.
The good news is that even moderate exercise and changes to your diet can have a big impact on your long-term health. And doctors can determine your personal risk for cardiovascular disease quite accurately, so it’s important to get regular checkups.
“Know your doctor and know your numbers,” Eagle said. “Because we can impact the numbers.”
Saberi, who studies genetic heart muscle disease, said doctors can intervene early with treatment — such as lowering blood pressure and cholesterol — to prevent people with a genetic predisposition from developing acute problems.
“You don’t have to be resigned to your genetics at all,” she said.
But if there’s a family history, it also means that eating right and exercising is even more important.
“It’s an opportunity for you to intervene and prevent the same thing from happening to you,” Froehlich said.
