Love your heart

Heart disease may be Britain’s number one killer, but it needn’t be that way. Nature has plenty of answers to help you keep your heart beating well.

Problems with the heart and circulation can cause stroke (where a clot blocks the supply of oxygen to part of the brain) and heart attacks (where a blockage stops energy-giving oxygen from reaching heart muscles). Both tend to be a result of what doctors call ‘atheroma’ – when deposits of excessive blood fats, especially cholesterol, build up on artery walls. Over time, the blood vessels become narrower, so blood flow is reduced, and the heart has to work harder to pump blood around the body.

Your risk of symptoms and illnesses collectively known as cardiovascular (meaning ‘of the heart’) disease increases if you are overweight, have high blood pressure or diabetes, or if you smoke. Weight and smoking are two risk factors that you can control yourself. And there is a wide range of herbs that research shows may help to control blood pressure, cholesterol and other heart problems.

Garlic is probably the herb that has been most written about throughout the ages. From repelling vampires to keeping mosquitoes at bay, garlic has many reputed benefits. Yet it’s not all myth and mystery. Garlic has been shown to help stop blood clotting and to keep moderately elevated blood pressure levels in check. It can also help to boost the good fats in the circulating blood including HDL cholesterol and triglycerides, while lowering ‘bad’ LDL cholesterol levels too. Some research has suggested it may also help keep arteries suppler and so, less inclined to the ‘hardening’ that can quite literally break your heart.

Like garlic, artichoke may not be to your taste, but its extracts are becoming increasingly popular for their cholesterol-lowering abilities.

The bark and seeds of the horse chestnut tree are also highly regarded by medical herbalists for their potent anti-inflammatory properties, which are especially helpful in relieving disorders of the veins and arteries, including stroke, heart attack and circulation problems. This is a herb, however, that should not be taken without supervision.

Extracts from the berries of another tree, the hawthorn, can help improve blood flow to the heart itself. Sufferers of angina – a painful condition where the heart starts to complain because it is deprived of blood and oxygen – can be greatly helped by this herb, which enjoys a well-deserved, age-old reputation as a heart tonic.

Astragalus is another herb that seems to help stabilise an irregular heart beat. It has been used for thousands of years by the Chinese, and in research has been shown to increase blood flow and widen blood vessels.

Ginkgo biloba and grape seed extract can help blood flow to the body’s extremities, the hands and feet, the latter being particularly vulnerable to poor circulation Choose your ginkgo supplement with care as it is only products providing an optimum amount of flavone glycosides (the herb’s active ingredients) that have been proven to be helpful in the treatment of circulatory disorders.

Top tip

Let it go! People who cope well with stress reduce their chances of having a stroke by almost a quarter, while older people who argue more put themselves at greater risk of having a heart attack. It’s simply not worth the fight.

Try these…

• Eat your oats. A breakfast bowl of oaty porridge could lower your levels of harmful LDL cholesterol by as much as 20 per cent.
• Get into gardening or any other gentle activity that makes exercise enjoyable. It’s great for your heart and will lift your spirits too.
• Enrich your diet with more fresh fruit and veg, and colourful citrus fruits and carrots in particular. They’re brimming over with the cardio-protective anti-oxidant vitamins A, C, E and beta-carotene to help boost your immune system and truly keep you young at heart.