5 Changes to Make Now With Coronary Artery Disease
After you develop coronary artery disease (CAD), your treatment focuses on stopping its progression and preventing life-threatening complications. Depending on the stage of your CAD, you may need lifestyle interventions, medications, or both.
Cardiology specialist Dr. Laura Fernandes at Woodlands Heart and Vascular Institute creates a personalized care plan for each person. However, everyone with CAD can benefit from five essential changes.
1. Keep up with medical care
CAD begins when cholesterol and other substances attach to the artery wall. Over time, the plaque builds up, creating a blockage that disrupts blood flow to the heart and causes a heart attack.
Keeping up with medical care — coming in for scheduled appointments and taking medication — is crucial for protecting your health.
During regular appointments, we monitor your heart and run in-office tests to be sure your treatment is working and CAD is not progressing.
Many medications are available to treat CAD. We may prescribe medications that:
- Reduce the strain on your heart
- Slow down plaque buildup
- Relax blood vessels
- Manage high blood pressure (hypertension)
- Lower your cholesterol
- Lower triglyceride levels
- Reduce the risk of blood clots
- Control blood sugar
- Relieve chest pain
While medications can protect your heart, they only work if you take them as prescribed. Talk with us if you have any concerns or issues that prevent you from keeping up with them.
2. Follow a healthy meal plan
The foods you consume have a significant role in your heart health. What you eat either worsens CAD or helps you manage heart disease, blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes.
The first step is limiting or avoiding salt, added sugars, and alcohol. However, you don’t need to restrict your overall diet. You can eat a wide range of healthy foods, including fruits, vegetables, beans, whole grains, fish, lean meat, and unsaturated fats like olive oil.
We can help you create a meal plan, or you can follow the guidelines of the DASH eating plan or Mediterranean diet.
3. Stop smoking
The chemicals in cigarette smoke do more than cause lung, bladder, and other cancers; they also significantly increase your risk for heart disease.
Inhaling cigarette smoke:
- Damages blood vessels
- Contributes to CAD
- Accelerates CAD progression
- Raises blood pressure
- Increases heart rate
- Reduces oxygen to tissues
- Reduces blood flow to the brain
It's hard to stop smoking because nicotine affects your brain. Eventually, the brain needs nicotine to function, and you develop a physical dependence.
For this reason, many people have better success with smoking cessation programs and medications that reduce cravings.
4. Maintain a healthy weight
Your weight affects all aspects of your health, including your heart. Being overweight or obese raises the risk of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes — the three conditions that directly contribute to CAD.
High blood pressure damages blood vessels (accelerating CAD) and strains your heart. Carrying extra weight spikes bad cholesterol while reducing good cholesterol. Your risk for diabetes also increases if you’re overweight.
Following a heart-healthy diet, limiting calories, and getting enough exercise are the foundation for losing weight. However, successful weight loss often needs more than those basics.
Many people need weight-loss medications or a medically supervised weight-loss program to reach their goals.
5. Get enough restorative sleep
If you don’t get enough sleep or have a condition like insomnia or sleep apnea that disrupts your sleep, the lack of restorative rest increases your risk of CAD, heart failure, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, and obesity.
When you sleep, your body performs essential maintenance. For example, your brain removes toxins and stores memories. Sleep is also the only time your heart can relax and repair damaged cells.
Following a bedtime routine can help you get the recommended 7-9 hours of sleep. Create a relaxing regimen (like taking a warm bath or reading a book before bedtime), go to bed around the same time every night, and turn off all lights, including electronics.
Seek early treatment for CAD
Don’t wait to schedule a heart evaluation if you have risk factors for CAD or experience symptoms like chest pain, shortness of breath, dizziness, or extreme fatigue. Call Woodlands Heart and Vascular Institute or use our online booking to request an appointment.