Heart doctors have for their patients advice on what they should do for heart health: good nutrition, more exercise, less Stress. But how it looks with your own Heart health? FOCUS Online wanted to know of a cardiologist.

In 2016, nearly 340,000 people died in Germany due to sick heart and vessels – number One cause of death. Cardiologists could despair about it, for they know that Many of the deaths could be due to a healthier lifestyle preventable.

Not Smoking, a sensible weight, exercise more incorporated in everyday life – everyone will be able to build a protection for the heart. Thorsten Dill, chief physician of Medical clinic and cardiology at the Sana hospital Düsseldorf-Benrath, explains in an interview with FOCUS Online, what is to be observed, and how he makes as a cardiologist, for his own heart health.

FOCUS Online: you Can specifically protect the heart?

Thorsten Dill: The heart is part of the cardiovascular system. The heart and the vessels must, therefore, be seen always as a unit. A good cholesterol and blood pressure, and setting, in conjunction with total avoidance of Nicotine, are essential measures for the protection of the heart and blood vessels.

FOCUS Online: Is it for different heart diseases, different protection measures?

Dill: The various heart diseases, such as coronary vascular disease, heart failure, or heart rhythm disorders are closely linked, and therefore, in principle apply the same recommendations. A healthy lifestyle with plenty of exercise and a conscious diet, preferably, the so-called Mediterranean diet, combined with good control of risk factors, protects against the Occurrence of the above-mentioned heart diseases.

Our heart needs exercise – and regularly

FOCUS Online: nutrition, exercise, Stress – like weights that you?

Dill: The movement is the highest estimate for a healthy heart. 150 to 180 minutes of endurance activity per week, divided into several units, is recommended. To use the car and walk, take the stairs instead of the Elevator – simple measures are very effective.

Behind it, I would arrange the diet, because they can particularly contribute to weight control. Diet plus Sport then provide for a stable, reasonable body weight. This is important for the joy of movement – and ultimately for a healthy heart.

The Stress I see in it, as heart risk, because it is usually associated with other unhealthy factors: a little and poor sleep, Smoking, too much Sweets or alcohol.

“My most important Heart protector is made of Sport”

FOCUS Online: And how it looks when you even with the heart-healthy Lifestyle?

Dill: As an Internist and cardiologist, I try to set a good example to go. I don’t smoke. I pay attention to the diet, i.e. less meat and often vegetables and fish. I keep my weight.

But my most important heart protection consists of sports, endurance training. I go three times a week for an hour, in Wind and weather. It requires discipline to get the regularly. The regularity is important for the heart, because a certain level of training protects you from the frequent errors to be rare, but to train and then overachieving.

This, then, is at the same time my Anti-Stress program. Do I need any special relaxation techniques – enough for me, when I’m running. Bernd Obermann Professor Dr. Thorsten Dill, Internist and cardiologist

Heart Checks are important for the Status quo

FOCUS Online: you occasionally of your colleagues check-up?

Dill: Yes, actually I have a “heart-Check” exercise ECG, ultrasound, blood test to perform. Depending on the individual risk, everyone should be a cardiovascular risk from the age of 40. to 50. Years of age once a preventive determine. Whether the fat levels in the blood (HDL – and LDL-cholesterol, triglycerides) are in order, with about 30 years of consider and a normal resting blood pressure (<140/90) even earlier, around 20 years. Especially if a family history exists, is an early test and a good setting of these values is important.

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FOCUS Online: What should be done, so that all so good to your heart as you?

Dill: In older patients, we see that it is very difficult to Change the entrenched way of life to move. A healthy lifestyle should be taught, therefore, and children. He would then, quite naturally to everyday life and the subsequent Generation lives. With these measures, we could be related is really a reduction of cardiovascular and related limitations in the quality of life and death.