Cut your risk in the following ways:
- Limit your TV watching to seven hours a week. Sitting down for long periods is bad for you even if you exercise regularly. Sitting affects blood sugar and fat levels an dincreases levels of inflammatory chemicals linked to diabetes and heart disease.
- Stay lean. Being overweight means more strain on the heart and blood vessels; you are more likely to develop diabetes, hgih blood pressure and high cholesterol.
- Just one glass of alcohol. because women have more fat and less water in their bodies, alcohol is absorbed more quickly and they are more susceptible to its toxic effects.
- Keep moving. Try for half an hour a day (split into shorter bursts if you like). Walking is low risk, easy to fit in and gentle on the joints.
- Give up smoking; it doubles the risk of heart disease and women may be especially vulnerable.
- Eat a Mediterranean diet: rich in fruit and vegetables, oily fish, beans, pulses and grains, plus small amounts of red meat, dairy and very little sugar and salt.
- Unusual fatigue and weakness.
- Nausea and/or vomiting.
- A dull pain, ache or heavy feeling in the chest or mild discomfort that makes you feel unwell.
- Chest pain that spreads to your back or stomach.
- Chest pain that feels like indegestion.
- Feeling light-headed or dizzy and having chest pains.
- Shortness of breath without chest pain.
- Some of these symptoms may even appear in the weeks before an actual heart attack.
- No family history of heart disease. While it does increase your risk, it's only one factor.
- Too young. Lifestyle factors mean that women can have heart attacks before the menopause.
- Don't have angina. US research indicates that 64% of women who died suddenly of coronary heart disease had no previous symptoms.
Feature in Good Housekeeping June 2015
