7 Hidden Heart Attack Symptoms in Women

7 Hidden Heart Attack Symptoms in Women

Poor Sleep? Heartburn? It Might Be a Sign of Something More Serious

7 Surprising Symptoms

You know the classic Hollywood image of a heart attack: A man clutches his chest and falls to the ground. But a heart attack typically looks far subtler in a woman, with a constellation of symptoms -- including fatigue, heartburn, indigestion, sudden dizziness, and troubled sleep -- that develop over hours, days, or even weeks. It's tempting to write off these signs as "nothing, really," but the more of them you have, the more likely you're suffering a heart attack. If you suspect you're having a heart attack, call 911 immediately.

Plagued by Fatigue?

Fatigue is a common complaint, and one that may indicate you're missing out on sleep, fighting a virus, overextending yourself, or experiencing a side effect due to medication. Unusual or extreme fatigue, however, may also be an early heart attack symptom or a warning sign of heart disease. In one study, more than 70% of the women surveyed experienced marked fatigue in the days or weeks prior to their heart attacks.

Troubled Sleep

It's not unusual to feel tired due to lack of sleep or a demanding week or month, but take notice of any unusual or prolonged disturbance in your sleep patterns. A recent study revealed that almost half of the women who had recently suffered a heart attack also experienced sleep disturbances in the days or weeks leading up to their attacks.

Shortness of Breath

Having trouble taking a deep breath but don't think you have asthma? Unexplained, severe shortness of breath during normal daily activities is one of the most common early heart attack symptoms in women, as is coughing.

Heartburn and Indigestion

When it comes to heartburn, a rich meal isn't always to blame. Nearly 40% of women who have had a heart attack say they experienced heartburn or indigestion shortly before the attack. Heart attack symptoms in women may also include unexplained nausea or vomiting. Women are twice as likely as men to experience gastrointestinal problems when having a heart attack.

Unexplained Anxiety

More than one-third of women experience unexplained anxiety as an early heart attack symptom. Yep, a heart attack can mimic a panic attack. Unfortunately, this can delay lifesaving treatment. Feeling anxious for no reason at all? Call for help, pronto.

Widespread Pain

Although sudden chest pain is considered a classic heart attack symptom, only about 30% of women report having chest pain. Women also report pain or discomfort in other areas of the body before or during a heart attack. Pressure, tightness, aching, or burning in your upper back, neck, shoulders, and arms -- or even in your jaw or throat -- can indicate a heart attack. Women have also described their chest pain as sharpness, fullness, or tingling.

Dizziness and Sweating

Nearly 40% of women suffering a heart attack say they feel dizzy or light-headed. Another 40% also break out in a cold sweat. It's easy to write off both as symptoms of menopause, but sudden dizziness can also be a symptom of stroke, so check with your doctor to be safe.

Know Your Heart Disease Risks

How do you know if your symptoms signal a heart attack? Get into the habit of noting your typical aches and pains and your normal reactions to foods and activities so you can recognize when something is truly amiss. If you have heart disease risk factors, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, obesity, diabetes, a smoking habit, or a sedentary lifestyle, be especially careful about monitoring how you feel. Alert your doctor if you experience unusual fatigue, changes in your sleep habits, or other subtle heart attack symptoms.

Recommended Blood Glucose Levels

We talk about carbs and diabetic diet info here, but we haven’t really covered the recommended blood glucose levels before. You can’t be on a low carb diabetic diet without having a target in mind, so knowing what your blood sugar should be is a pretty critical component in the overall picture. To get started, let’s talk about what types of blood glucose readings you will take, and then what those should be.

Fasting Blood Glucose

One of the two times to measure blood sugar is first thing in the morning, before you eat or drink anything. This is called your fasting blood glucose, and the recommended blood glucose levels for fasting are anything below 100. If your blood sugar reading is 101-125, you have prediabetes. A fasting blood glucose level of 126 or more is a diagnosis of diabetes. Experts are starting to discount the accuracy of a fasting blood glucose reading, though it used to be the first indication of blood sugar control issues. Now, the recommendation is the postprandial reading.

Instead of fasting blood sugar readings, try following the recommended blood glucose levels in a postprandial test. Postprandial simply means after eating, and is typically taken at one or two hours after a meal. The one hour reading is slightly more accurate, and has the added bonus of being easier to remember! For the postprandial reading, aim for anything under 140. 141-199 is prediabetes, and a reading of 200 at any time of day is enough to warrant a diagnosis of diabetes.

Recommended blood glucose levels have been determined after extensive research. While it can be tempting to fudge the numbers or discount a slightly elevated reading, if you get a reading in the prediabetes or diabetes range, you need to stop what you’re doing right now and work to improve your blood sugar control. It really is that serious. Prediabetes can actually be reversed, giving you a second chance at a healthy life, so pay attention to those recommended blood glucose levels and stay healthy!

How Do I Calculate Glycemic Index on Foods?

The Glycemic Index, though making great advances all the time, does not have information on all foods out there. For that reason, many people are wondering if there is a way to calculate Glycemic Index numbers on the foods they can’t find online.
The short answer to this question is, no, you can’t calculate Glycemic Index on your own. This is because to assign a Glycemic Index rating to a food, it must be control tested in a laboratory, with blood sugar monitored regularly to see how foods affect blood sugar. The University of Sydney, home of the Glycemic Index, calculates Glycemic Index by giving a measured portion of a food to 10 or more people and measuring their blood sugar. They assign a rating based on how the food compares to the standard, white bread, which has a GI rating of 100.

The best thing you can do is use common sense when deciding to eat a food, and then measure your own body’s response to the food. The Glycemic Index is a helpful guideline, but the best information comes from knowing your own body. We all respond differently to foods, so while one person may be able to get away with a white potato now and again, eating that same food may cause a spike in blood sugar for you.
By testing and recording your results on different foods, you will have no need to calculate the Glycemic Index of foods, because you will have one better than that – your own research.
For foods that are already tested and assigned a calculated Glycemic Index rating, visit http://glycemicindex.com/ to find the GI rating. More foods are added all the time, so keep checking back if your food is not listed, and remember, the best answers will come from your own body.

The Master List of Low Carb Snacks for Low Carb Diets, Diabetes and Gestational Diabetes

The Master List of Low Carb Snacks for Low Carb Diets, Diabetes and Gestational Diabetes

Looking for a list of low carb snacks to give you some ideas? This list will be frequently updated as I come across more snack ideas that work for low carb diets, gestational diabetes and diabetic diets. Since most of us don’t have time or the inclination to cook elaborate snacks, most of these can be thrown together in a matter of a few minutes. If the snack item on the list requires a recipe, the name of the snack will link to its corresponding recipe.

Low Carb Snacks on the Go

·      Honey roasted peanuts

·      Parmesan cheese crisps

Low Carb Snacks under 100 Calories

When you just don’t want to think about your snack, the 100 calorie packs are a great option. These are also excellent low carb snacks on the go since you can just pop them in your lunch box and head to work or school.

·      Lorna Doone Shortbread Cookie Crisps 16g carbs

·      Yogurt Covered Pretzels 16g carbs

·      Milk Chocolate Covered Pretzels 16g carbs

·      Ritz Snack Mix 100 Calorie Pack 16g carbs

·      Oreo Cookie Crisps 100 Calorie Pack 16g carbs

·      Wheat Thins 100 Calorie Pack 16g carbs

·      Cheese Nips 100 Calorie Pack 14g carbs

·      Planters Peanut Butter Cookie Crisps 100 Calorie Pack 17g carbs

·      Chips Ahoy! 100 Calorie Pack 18g carbs

Low Sugar Low Carb Snacks

·      Sugar free pudding cups – Jell-o makes great chocolate, chocolate/vanilla and some mixes such as banana cream and bavarian cream, all under 15 carb

Low Carb Snacks for Kids

·      Fruit and cheese kabobs

·      Cheese and meat rolls

·      Ants on a log (celery with peanut butter and raisins)

·      Bananas with peanut butter

·      Pizza stackers (crackers topped with cheese, pepperoni and sliced olives)

·      Yogurt with granola

·      Mixed nuts with raisins

·      Low carb quesadillas (regular quesadillas on low carb tortillas)

·      Popcorn sprinkled with Parmesan cheese

Crunchy Low Carb Snacks

·      Rice cakes

·      Parmesan cheese crisps

Salty Low Carb Snacks

·      Ritz crackers topped with cream cheese and bacon bits

Low Carb Vegetables

·      Celery sticks with peanut butter

·      Mixed veggies dipped in hummus

·      Cucumber slices with seasoning salt, ranch dressing or dip of your choice

·      Steamed broccoli and cauliflower with butter, salt and melted Cheddar cheese

·      Carrot sticks in ranch, hummus, sour cream dip or Greek yogurt

·      Mixed veggies dipped in Greek yogurt

·      Pickles with peanut butter

Low Carb Fruits

·      Apple slices with cheese slices

·      Apple slices dipped in peanut butter

·      Apple slices dipped in cream cheese

Bedtime Snacks

·      Small bowl of cereal with milk

·      Cup of milk with graham crackers

High Protein Low Carb Snacks

·      Cottage cheese with lemon pepper

·      String cheese dipped in spaghetti or pizza sauce

·      Cheese slices with summer sausage, optionally dipped in Grey Poupon

·      Cheese and crackers

·      Boiled eggs dipped in salt

·      Peanut butter and crackers

·      High fiber toast with peanut butter (one of my favorite breakfast foods)

·      Kashi TLC crackers with peanut butter (it’s so good it’s like dessert)

Americans need to try harder to eat fruits, vegetables

Great article from USA Today...

No one said eating enough fruits and vegetables was going to be a piece of cake — even if you're giving it your best shot.

The majority of Americans say they've been trying to eat more fruits and vegetables over the past year, according to a poll of 1,057 adults for the International Food Information Council Foundation.

But most people are consuming less than half of what the government recommends. Kids and adults eat an average of a little more than a cup of vegetables a day and a little more than half a cup of fruit, according to the latest data from the NPD Group, a market research firm. Those numbers don't count french fries but do include other types of potatoes, such as baked and mashed.

How much is enough?

How many cups you should eat is based on your calorie intake, according to the government's dietary guidelines. Anyone who consumes 2,000 calories a day is supposed to eat 2½ cups of vegetables and two cups of fruit a day. A person who takes in about 1,400 calories a day should have about 1½ cups of fruits and the same amount of vegetables.

"Children 2 through 12 and their parents are inching up in the amount they consume, but unfortunately, teens and the elderly are bringing the averages down," says Elizabeth Pivonka, president and CEO of the Produce for Better Health Foundation, a non-profit nutrition education group.

The reason for the push for an increased intake of fruits and vegetables is they are loaded with vitamins, minerals, fiber, antioxidants and other compounds that help fight disease, she says.

But can anyone really eat three to 4½ cups from these two food groups each day?

Pivonka says every little bit counts: raisins in cereal, frozen berries in smoothies, vegetables in soup, tomato sauce on spaghetti, beans in chili, veggies on sandwiches, 100% fruit juices.

In general, one cup of raw or cooked vegetables or vegetable juice, or two cups of raw leafy greens, counts as one cup from the vegetable group. One cup (or one piece) of fruit or 100% fruit juice, or half a cup of dried fruit, is considered one cup from the fruit group. So if you eat an apple or banana, that counts as one cup of fruit for the day; a medium side salad could equal about one cup of vegetables.

An easy way to reach the recommended amount is to make half your plate fruits and vegetables at every meal, as suggested by the government's MyPlate icon (choosemy plate.gov), says Rachel Begun, a registered dietitian and spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, formerly the American Dietetic Association: "This is a visual that's easy to remember."

Do the shopping

To eat enough from these two food groups, you need to make sure your fridge and freezer are well-stocked, which may mean grocery shopping one or two times a week, says Dawn Jackson Blatner, a registered dietitian in Chicago.

"I like to buy pre-washed containers of leafy greens, trays of assorted cut veggies and bags of frozen vegetables for later in the week when my fresh produce is gone."

She also likes to have leftover grilled veggies in the refrigerator in the spring and summer and roasted vegetables in the winter and fall.

Cooking vegetables, including grilling or roasting them, often helps bring out natural flavors and sweetness, Blatner says.

Consider the options

When people tell her they don't like vegetables, Pivonka tells them that there are hundreds of different fruits and vegetables that can be prepared in thousands of different ways. "My daughter was 10 years old before I discovered that she liked cooked carrots instead of raw carrots."

She says her group often hears from consumers who are concerned about cost. A government study showed you can eat the recommended daily amount of fruits and vegetables for $2 to $2.50 a day. "It's really a matter of priorities and how you spend your money," she says. "You can skip the soda when you eat out, and you've saved enough money to buy all your fruits and vegetables for the day."

When it comes to both price and taste, it's often best to eat produce that's in season, Begun says:

"There's a world of difference between a tomato from a local farm in late summer vs. one in January that was picked before its time and flown thousands of miles."

15 Myths and Surprising Facts about Your Heart!

Confused by the news about heart health? We decided to explore the science behind the headlines and to explain clearly but completely the evidence supporting a plan for your heart health.” Here, are 15 claims to help you get to the heart of the matter.

The Claim: Going to the Doc Can Raise Your Blood Pressure

The Truth: For many of us, a visit to the doctor causes emotional stress, and your body releases adrenaline and other hormones into your bloodstream, increasing blood pressure. We call this doctor-induced increase in blood pressure “white coat hypertension.”

If your doctor determines that you have high blood pressure, make sure that this is not simply white coat hypertension. Buy your own blood pressure monitor and check your pressure at home under less stressful conditions. If your resting blood pressure at home is normal (120/80 or less), you have white coat hypertension. If you have white coat hypertension, however, stay on top of your blood pressure (frequent blood pressure checks, exercise, and good diet) to limit your chance of developing real hypertension in the future.

The Claim: Red Meat Is Black-Listed

The Truth: Red meat is relatively high in saturated fat, and as a result, it gets a bad rap. The most important point is to distinguish between processed and unprocessed products. Compared to unprocessed meats, processed meats have similar contents of saturated fat and cholesterol. The key difference is that they have four times as much sodium and 50 percent more nitrates and nitrites. The sodium can increase blood pressure, while the nitrates may promote atherosclerosis and diabetes.

In general, limit all red meats because of their high saturated fat content and try to avoid processed red meats. An occasional meal that contains a reasonable quantity of unprocessed red meat (a 6- to 8-ounce steak, not a 22-ounce rib eye) is unlikely to cause harm.

The Claim: Your Friends Can Make You Fat

The Truth: Researchers from Harvard Medical School addressed this question, examining the spread of obesity in a large social network over a thirty-two-year period. They found that obesity tended to occur in clusters, and examination of these clusters of obese people confirmed that obesity is socially contagious. A person’s risk of becoming obese increased by nearly 60 percent if he or she had a friend who became obese over the course of the study. Similarly, a sibling or spouse becoming obese resulted in a 40 percent chance that other siblings or the other spouse would also become obese. This obesity effect was transmitted over long distances—friends separated by thousands of miles had the same influence as those who lived next door.

The Claim: Sex Is Exercise

The Truth: It depends on what you do and for how long. On average (and of course none of us wants to lay claim to being average), sex lasts for five to fifteen minutes and consumes about as much energy as walking one mile in twenty minutes. The younger and more vigorous among us may double or even triple this figure, reaching the threshold of vigorous exercise. Alas, these people are the exception. So can we make an argument for sex, heart-wise? The answer is probably yes. A healthy sex life correlates with a healthy heart.

The Claim: Hormone Replacement Therapy Will Protect Your Heart

The Truth: Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) should not be used to protect the heart. But careful analysis reveals that HRT poses little to no risk when used for short periods (six months) by women who are within ten years of menopause. In these women, HRT is effective at relieving hot flashes and night sweats. In contrast, in older women and those more than ten years from menopause, HRT is riskier——it increases the likelihood of heart attack and death from heart disease.

The Claim: Eggs Are Off-Limits

The Truth: Everybody knows that eggs contain cholesterol, and it is widely believed that eating foods rich in cholesterol leads to heart disease. Ergo, we should not eat eggs, right? Not exactly. Today we understand that most people can have one to three eggs per week. Eighty percent of your body’s cholesterol is made by your liver, with diet contributing only about 20 percent. Among dietary factors, saturated fats and trans fats have a greater impact on blood cholesterol levels than does dietary cholesterol. This is not a reason to fill your meals with cholesterol, but it does mean that you can keep eggs in your diet.

The Claim: Video Games Can Make You Fit

The Truth: One creative way to get your daily dose of exercise is to play games on the Wii. One-third of the activities in the Wii sports video and fitness packages require enough energy expenditure to qualify them as moderate-intensity exercise. Golf and bowling involve only low-level exertion, but you can work up a real sweat on the Wii with boxing and tennis. The benefits of Wii and similar systems may extend even beyond the heart. Recent studies show that games that require strategic thinking boost both heart rate and cognitive abilities and memory. So, no matter what your age, you can spice up your exercise routine by including action video games in your program.

The Claim: To Get Fit Fast, Vary Your Exercise Pace

The Truth: Once reserved for competitive athletes, interval training is a real option for all of us. With this approach, you can squeeze your workouts into shorter time periods, and possibly derive even greater benefits from them. The principle of aerobic interval training is to vary the intensity of your activity, alternating periods of strenuous exertion with periods of recovery. For the runner, this may mean alternating four-minute sprints with three-minute walks, using the walk to recover from the heavier exertion. Nearly every aerobic activity can be approached in this fashion. Compared to standard, steady exercise, interval training produces greater increases in endurance, oxygen use and general fitness. In addition, studies show that interval training has beneficial effects on body weight and blood pressure.

The Claim: You Have to Be in the “Zone” to Get a Good Workout

The Truth: You don’t have to use some arbitrary percentage of your maximum calculated heart rate to guide your workouts. The truth is that you can have an excellent workout at both relatively low and relatively high heart rates, depending upon your exercise regimen and your own personal cardiac characteristics. Tailor your workout to how you feel, and make sure that you exert yourself—evidence of a good workout will be obvious as the sweat begins to flow. The real key to exercising effectively is to make sure that you are exercising consistently. As one researcher noted, the most important calculation related to exercise is not your maximum heart rate; it’s determining where in your busy schedule you can fit a daily workout.

The Claim: You Can Die of a Broken Heart

The Truth: In 2005, Johns Hopkins researchers stunned the American public with their description of a condition called stress cardiomyopathy, a potentially life-threatening heart problem brought about by intense emotion. Hopkins doctors studied nineteen people who suffered acute chest pain and catastrophic heart failure after sudden emotional stress. The most common precipitating event was death of a loved one, but in two cases the life-threatening event was a surprise party. This understanding of “broken heart syndrome” represents our best scientific evidence of a biochemical link between emotional stress and heart disease. Interestingly, almost all of the patients with stress cardiomyopathy were women. We don’t yet understand why women may be more vulnerable than men. But we do know that this story has a happy ending: all of the patients recovered.

The Claim: Exercise is Dangerous for Heart Patients

The Truth: Nearly all heart patients can benefit from exercise, and this holds true for patients with heart failure and heart damage. The benefits of aerobic exercise are actually not related to a direct effect on the heart. Aerobic exercise works by increasing muscle efficiency, improving the ability of the body’s muscles to extract oxygen from the blood. Patients with congestive heart failure usually have reduced exercise capacity, and this obviously makes it harder to exercise. Our advice is to do whatever you must to find the motivation to exercise. The keys to safety and success are to start aerobic exercise slowly and to increase gradually. Walking is the ideal form of aerobic exercise for the heart failure patient.

The Claim: Hot Tubs Can Hurt Your Heart

The Truth: Staying in a hot tub or sauna for too long can certainly cause severe dehydration and dangerous fluid and electrolyte problems. But a ten-minute session in the hot tub or sauna will not hurt you or your heart. Hot tubs and saunas do not cause heart attacks or heart problems or interfere with cardiac pacemakers. As you enter the sauna or immerse yourself in the hot tub, blood vessels near the skin dilate (enlarge), causing a slight drop in blood pressure; this is rarely dangerous. You can minimize the impact of this blood pressure change by getting in and out slowly, which gives your body a moment to adjust to the temperature change.

The Claim: A Stretch a Day Keeps the Heart Doc Away

The Truth: While American studies of work-related stress and heart disease focus primarily on the quality of the work environment, others have examined the relationship between the quantity of work and heart health. In one recent British study, researchers found that employees working three or more overtime hours per day substantially increased their risk of heart-related problems over a ten-year period. The risk was particularly high among overtime workers with low decision-making capability and high job strain. While the study did not tease out the cause of increased heart disease among overtime workers, researchers noted that employees who worked longer hours were more likely to smoke, had less favorable cholesterol profiles, and had less time for leisure-time exercise than their co-workers.

The Claim: You Can Be “Fat and Fit”

The Truth: A small but vocal cadre of doctors believes that obesity and heart health are not mutually exclusive. They use the term “metabolically healthy obese” to refer to people who are obese but who do not have changes in standard cardiac risk factors, suggesting that these people have nothing to worry about. However, recent, careful studies in this group demonstrate that they face an increased risk of developing heart disease when compared to metabolically healthy people of normal weight. The message here is clear: excess weight is a real and independent risk factor for heart disease even when other standard risk factors are absent. Don’t be lulled into a false sense of security if your weight is high but your cholesterol is normal.

The Claim: You Can be Worked to Death

The Truth: While American studies of work-related stress and heart disease focus primarily on the quality of the work environment, others have examined the relationship between the quantity of work and heart health. In one recent British study, researchers found that employees working three or more overtime hours per day substantially increased their risk of heart-related problems over a ten-year period. The risk was particularly high among overtime workers with low decision-making capability and high job strain. While the study did not tease out the cause of increased heart disease among overtime workers, researchers noted that employees who worked longer hours were more likely to smoke, had less favorable cholesterol profiles, and had less time for leisure-time exercise than their co-workers

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