Prevention of atherosclerosis - useful tips

What are the steps of a good prevention of atherosclerosis? What should I do not to have the problems and disease?

Before talking about prevention, I'd like you to keep in mind that atherosclerosis causes your arteries to lose their natural elasticity, leading to myriad heart disease. In fact atherosclerosis is the major leading cause of death in people over 45 years old.

In order to start a good prevention , you need to quit smoking, decrease LDL “Bad” cholesterol in your blood, control your hypertension, maintain your weight and have some regular physical activity.

If you are diabetic, you must know how to control your blood sugar.

Drugs like statins, aspirin and anticoagulants may also help you in the prevention of atherosclerosis.

Serving Healthy food to your heart is an effective way of lowering or even prevention of atherosclerosis. A healthy nutrition lifestyle can help in:

  • Lowering LDL “bad” cholesterol
  • Lowering hypertension
  • Controlling diabetes
  • Preventing overweight

Here are some important healthy food tips to help you in prevention of atherosclerosis:

1- Try to eat more fish.


Fish is an excellent natural source of proteins as well as omega-3 fatty acids. American Heart Association advises you to have 2 fish servings (e.g. salmon) weekly.

2- Eat constantly more vegetables, fruits, and whole grain products.

3- Always lower your total fat intake, by avoid eating saturated fats and trans-fatty acids (butter, margarine, fries, snacks and sweets); instead you can use monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats (olive oils, peanut oil) in cooking.

4-Choose always the leanest proteins, because rich-fat proteins (like red meat, milk dairy products) are famous causes of cardiovascular diseases.

5- Lower your daily cholesterol intake.

American Heart Association tells you that it is OK to eat one egg daily if your blood cholesterol level is normal, and recommends you to limit your daily cholesterol intake to 300 milligrams.

6- Try always to get your daily energy by consumption of complex carbohydrates (whole wheat pasta, whole grain bread, sweet potatoes), and avoid simple carbohydrates (soft drinks, sweets).

7- You can regulate your blood pressure by lowering the amounts of added salts in your foods; you can use herbs and other spices to have your desired flavors.


Quitting smoking is another effective method in prevention of atherosclerosis, as smoking increases the risk of having a coronary heart disease by:

1 - Reducing HDL “good” cholesterol levels

2 - Increasing LDL “bad” cholesterol level

3 - Increasing carbon monoxide level in your blood (which is well known with its ability to damage arterial lining)

4 - Increasing blood coagulation tendency

Actually, when you stop smoking, you are minimizing your risk of having a heart disease or a stroke by 50%, regardless of how long you had been smoking.

Unfortunately, secondary smokers show high risk for development of heart diseases as well.

Fighting obesity is very important to prevent atherosclerosis, as being overweight will aggravate the development of atherosclerosis in the blood vessels supplying your heart, thus increasing your risk to coronary heart diseases among the types of atherosclerosis disease .

Recent studies prove that loss of regular physical activity increases the risk of having heart attacks and other CVD.

Furthermore, daily physical is found to play an effective role in prevention of atherosclerosis through:

  • Reducing hypertension
  • Decreasing total blood cholesterol levels
  • Help in maintaining your weight loss
  • Lowering your body’s resistance to insulin

At the end, taking all the above tips into account, you may totally succeed in preventing atherosclerosis. Stay firm! Keep healthy!

Related topics

  • How to recognize Atherosclerosis Symptoms in time?

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