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Lower Your Heart Attack Risk: 9 Foods That Naturally Clean Your Arteries

Those who eat unhealthy food have a higher risk of heart disease and are also generally detrimental to their health. Conversely, with a healthy and balanced diet, you can prevent numerous ailments and diseases. We introduce you to 9 foods that are good for your cardiovascular system, clean your arteries – and thus reduce your heart attack risk.

Lowering the risk of heart attack: How to unclog clogged arteries with healthy foods

A high-fat diet is a risk factor for clogged blood vessels – as are high blood pressure, obesity and high cholesterol. The blood vessels supply our organs with oxygen and nutrients. If they are blocked, it can lead to organ damage, heart attacks or strokes.

In addition to foods that clog your arteries, there are also foods that clean them, helping to prevent cardiovascular disease. This is exactly why you should try to keep your arteries as healthy as possible – i.e. flexible, elastic and stable. The following foods can help with this.

1. Grapefruit – the citrus fruit helps your arteries with a fiber

The grapefruit is not only the largest of all citrus fruits, but also good for your cardiovascular system: the tropical fruit is full of pectins. Pectins are sugar-like dietary fibers that can slow down arteriosclerosis. For those who have lived an unhealthy lifestyle, grapefruit is therefore the ideal snack for heart health. If you don’t like grapefruit, you can also use apples or grapefruit. These fruits also contain pectin. Apples also contain procyanidins – a substance that prevents blood clots. But be careful: not all apples have the same number of procyanidins. It is best to use the Granny Smith or Red Delicious varieties.

2. Green tea – booster for your cardiovascular system

Green tea is also the perfect booster for a healthy cardiovascular system. What makes green tea so healthy for our arteries are also procyanidins. On the one hand, they can prevent blood clots and thus both heart attacks and strokes, and on the other hand, they can stabilize the arteries and ensure more elasticity.

3. Whole grain products, legumes and nuts – this is how they lower the cholesterol level

There is a lot of dietary fiber in legumes, whole grain products, but also in brown rice or oatmeal. These are not only good for digestion, but can also greatly reduce blood lipid levels. Another advantage of high-fiber foods is that you can combine them with almost any meal.

4. Spinach – With vitamins D and E to fight deposits in the arteries

Saying hello to Popeye: While spinach doesn’t contain quite as much iron as was long thought (and portrayed in the popular Sailor comic), it’s all the better for your heart. Because what should actually make spinach famous is its vitamin D and E content. These two vitamins prevent the oxidation of cholesterol. This means that no plaque can form which would build up and constrict the arteries.

5. Fat is allowed: But please use healthy cooking oils

In general, a healthy diet that is good for your cardiovascular system tends to be low in fat. However, healthy cooking oils are an exception. These include olive oil or rapeseed oil, as they contain a particularly large number of unsaturated fatty acids and can reduce the risk of heart attack. They also contain many antioxidants, which can also prevent the oxidation of cholesterol.

6. Fresh salmon – how it lowers the risk of heart attack

Salmon is also good for heart health and may reduce your risk of heart attack. With the high content of omega-3 fatty acids, plaque formation on the artery walls is prevented. It also reduces the risk of stroke and heart attack because blood clots cannot form.

7. Delicious – and very healthy: Swiss chard, garlic and cabbage

Many types of vegetables are only rarely consumed today, even though they are true miracle cures. Swiss chard is such a vegetable. The leafy greens have a very high content of antioxidants and thus reduce the risk of inflammation in the body. In addition, chard has a lot of vitamin D, which prevents the oxidation of cholesterol and thus prevents arteriosclerosis.

8. Did you know? Tomatoes and fruit also clean your arteries

Tomatoes, which by definition are actually a fruit and not a vegetable, are high in lycopene. Lycopene is an antioxidant substance that prevents the oxidation of cholesterol and thus prevents arteriosclerosis. But: Lycopene is only found in relevant amounts in heated tomatoes, not in raw ones. So it’s better to use tomato soup or sauce instead of raw tomatoes.

9. For those who like it spicy: cayenne pepper

Cayenne pepper also protects the cardiovascular system: the spice, made from dried and ground chilies, is rich in capsaicin. The substance prevents plaque deposits in the arteries and thus prevents arteriosclerosis, as an American research group found out. In addition, cayenne pepper has other health-promoting effects: it stimulates digestion and promotes blood circulation.

Conclusion: With the right diet, you can do your heart good

It’s no surprise: Eating a healthy diet has a positive impact on your health. Above all, your cardiovascular system benefits from healthy food – and it can be delicious. You don’t have to constantly limit yourself in your diet, but you should find the right balance in your diet. This keeps your arteries clean and can reduce your risk of heart attack.

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Lifestyle

Personalized and Individual Gift Ideas Come from the Heart!

It is not always easy to find a beautiful and personal gift. Whether it’s a birthday, Christmas, a wedding, or a passed exam – there are many occasions when family members and friends have to go looking for gifts. Personalized and individual gift ideas are just the thing for this.

Find individual gift ideas

Vouchers and perfume are considered classics, but these gifts are anything but really personal. It takes more to find a gift that comes from the heart and puts a smile on the other person’s face! If you are looking for a brilliant idea when looking for gifts, you can use the following guide. So we have put together a list of personalized and individual gift ideas that make it easy to make friends and family members very happy.

Make your own photo calendar

Unfortunately, there are a large number of gifts that are no longer of any use to the recipient shortly after they are unwrapped and end up in the basement. Even if the idea of ​​the gift isn’t all that bad. If you are looking for a sustainable gift that will give pleasure for a long time, you will quickly come across individual and personally designed photo calendars. A self-designed calendar with shared snapshots is a great gift. The recipient is guaranteed to find a place in their own four walls for this individually designed annual planner.

In order to design a calendar yourself, it is no longer necessary to get scissors and craft glue out of the drawer these days. Various online portals such as rosemood.de offer good service. This allows you to give your calendar a very personal touch with your own pictures and photos. This gift is guaranteed to hit the mark and make the recipient think of you all year round!

Give away a short trip

Almost everyone answers the question of what they currently want most with vacation. You can give your family or good friends a huge treat by giving them a ticket to go on vacation. Short trips within Germany and neighboring countries now only cost a few hundred euros. For example, if you arrive in your own car. However, if you want to give a short break or a weekend trip to the Baltic Sea as a gift, you should inquire about the recipient’s free vacation days.

Create individual vouchers

Vouchers are always boring? Not necessarily. If you take the design of a voucher into your own hands, you can make the recipient’s eyes widen. We are not talking about vouchers that can be redeemed in online shops or shops in the city center, but vouchers with a personal value. The following applies here: The more unusual and funny, the better!

Engraved jewelry

Pieces of jewelery are a very popular gift for a wide variety of occasions. Each piece of jewelry such as rings, bracelets, chains, or wristwatches is made truly unique with a personal engraving. A nice saying, the names of the children or the wedding date are suitable engravings for jewelery of all kinds and can be requested on the Internet or ordered personally from the goldsmith and jewelery dealer. Storage options for jewelry can also be great ideas for gifts.

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health

Tea and Coffee Protect Against Heart Disease

Drinking coffee without regrets, who doesn’t wish for it. In the face of many opinions circulating that drinking coffee promotes cardiovascular diseases, strokes and other ailments, many a passionate coffee drinker may try to hold back for the sake of health. After a study recently revealed that coffee is good for the heart, Dutch scientists are now daring to take another step that clearly weakens the stubborn prejudice against the black hot drink. The results of their long-term study with more than 37,000 subjects, published in June 2010, show that moderate consumption of coffee, but especially tea, can lead to a significant reduction in the risk of heart disease.

Coffee protects For 13 years, the researchers from the University Medical Center in Utrecht have analyzed data on the tea and coffee consumption of the study participants and linked it to the incidence of heart disease and death in this group of people. The result of the tea drinkers was clearest. Those who drink between three and six cups of tea a day have a 45 percent lower risk of dying from heart disease than someone who drinks less than one cup of tea a day. With higher tea consumption (more than six cups a day), the risk is still reduced by 36 percent.
The study did not record the type of tea the subjects consumed. However, based on statistical values, it is assumed that 78 percent of Dutch tea drinkers prefer black tea and 4.6 percent consume green tea. This means that the results of the study can primarily be related to black tea drinkers.

The study also showed positive results for coffee drinkers: two to four cups of coffee a day reduce the risk by 20 percent. The effect is therefore not as strong as with tea drinkers, but is still clearly present. The researchers also state that heavy tea and coffee consumption does not increase the risk of stroke, as is often assumed. No corresponding correlations could be established.

The scientists can only guess why the positive effects are weaker for coffee drinkers than for tea drinkers. It is possible that heavy coffee drinkers are generally more careless with their health, smoke more often and eat less healthily. They had higher cholesterol and blood sugar levels than the tea drinkers in the study. Nevertheless, coffee and tea drinkers can rejoice. The good effects on health cannot be denied and will perhaps calm down one or the other heavy coffee drinker a little…

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health

Effects of Tea And Coffee on Heart Disease

Both coffee and tea have many different health benefits. These drinks can also protect against heart disease.

Coffee and tea prevent heart disease. But can they also protect against a heart attack?

Even if you might not think so at first, coffee and tea have a lot in common. Depending on which varieties you drink, you can perceive different effects on your own body: They are among the pick-me-ups, are healthy due to the many vital substances and can also help you lose weight. They are also said to prevent depression and provide relief for mild headaches. In addition, coffee and tea are said to protect against heart disease. How exactly do these drinks affect health? And can they protect against a heart attack?

How do coffee and tea affect heart disease?

Tea and coffee drinkers can now have another reason to reach for their favorite beverage on a regular basis. Because Dutch scientists have now proven that regular consumption of coffee or tea reduces heart disease. This was supported by further analysis that built on previous studies. Studies from that time showed that heart disease appears to be reduced by coffee and tea consumption. However, there was no clear evidence of the impact on the risk of stroke or fatal heart disease. This connection has now been examined more closely in the form of further studies and the results have been revealing. 37,514 Dutch women and men between the ages of 20 and 69 were analyzed for 13 years. Although the tea drinkers were not specifically asked about their preferred type of tea and categorized accordingly, 78 percent of the tea consumed in the Netherlands is black and 4.6 percent is green tea. Accordingly, it was assumed in the analysis that the results relate primarily to the regular consumption of black tea. Other criteria such as gender, age, physical activity, alcohol consumption or diabetes were also taken into account.

In the course of the long-term study, the subjects had the following abnormalities with regard to their hearts: 1,881 subjects developed heart problems, of which 563 suffered a stroke and 1,387 of the coffee and tea drinkers had general heart problems. There was also a total of 1,405 deaths, 70 of which were caused by stroke and 123 by heart disease. The researchers were able to establish a connection between the consumption of tea and coffee and heart disease. A high consumption of tea is healthy for the heart, because those who consume an average of six cups of tea a day reduce the risk of suffering from heart disease by 36 percent. The results were similar for coffee drinkers: Those who drink two to four cups of coffee a day – which is considered a healthy amount – reduce the risk by 20 percent.

Protection against heart disease from coffee and tea

These studies by the Dutch researchers show that coffee and tea help reduce the risk of heart disease. So if you drink a certain amount of coffee or tea every day, you reduce the risk of suffering a stroke or heart disease over a longer period of time. However, heart patients in particular should pay attention to unwanted effects such as cardiac arrhythmias. These can certainly arise from the consumption of coffee or black or green tea. However, the impact of other types of tea on health was not addressed in this study.

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health

Coffee and Heart Health

You shouldn’t drink coffee if you have heart problems. Or is it? Many myths and prejudices surround this topic. So let’s take a closer look at the whole thing.

Health hazard or benefit? The effect of coffee on the heart is much debated.

Coffee is good for our hearts, but there are downsides too. This is the result of several studies in recent years that have attempted to weigh up the advantages and disadvantages of coffee for health. The conclusion: properly enjoyed coffee protects the heart rather than harming it. However, many coffee drinkers have many bad habits, one of which is smoking.

Where do the prejudices against coffee come from?

Unfortunately, coffee’s bad reputation began shortly after its Europeanization in the 17th-18th centuries. It was considered a drug, Johann Sebastian Bach warned against it in his coffee cantata, and it was sometimes banned or limited in European countries. In the 20th century, science finally took on the matter and determined in a long series of statistics that there was a significant connection between diseases of civilization and the consumption of coffee. In Western countries, people drink more coffee and suffer from certain diseases, including cardiovascular disease, to about the same extent. But is this connection correct? Statistically it seems to be proven, but how does the causal chain really run?

coffee and statistics

The statistics really don’t lie, but the researchers were blind in one eye. The actual connection looks like this: In Western countries, at the latest in the second half of the 20th century, a lifestyle was established that includes several formative factors. Coffee is one of them, but also a sedentary lifestyle, high-fat food, too much alcohol and smoking and a lot of counterproductive stress are also part of it. Most of these factors, individually and especially in combination, contribute to the deterioration of the health situation, but coffee is obviously not one of them. The fact that smokers enjoy being coffee drinkers is what gave the coffee brother its bad image, for which its evil sister cigarette is actually responsible. Properly enjoyed coffee protects the heart rather than harming it.

The truth is, coffee promotes heart health

The truth is that coffee counteracts hardening of the arteries (from four cups a day) and thus protects heart health. A Boston study of 1.3 million people has impressively demonstrated this connection. It was shown that the risk of heart disease decreased from four cups of coffee per day, and that it did not increase again with even more coffee consumption. A study with 30,000 subjects was also presented in Korea. This supported the Boston findings on arteriosclerosis and also suggested that these findings applied to coffee or non-coffee smokers, obese people and people with high blood pressure.

This means that coffee promotes heart health even independently of other habits.

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Food

Coffee with Heart – the Art of Latte Art

A great milk foam makes the cappuccino or latte macchiato twice as delicious! You always look forward to a beautiful motif made of milk foam on the coffee you order, don’t you? Whether the classic heart on the cappuccino or a fern leaf on the milk coffee – the sweet and creative motifs are usually too good to destroy with the first sip of coffee. It’s just the little things that make our coffee enjoyment perfect.

The term latte art is composed of the Italian word latte (milk) and the English expression art (art). Latte art is the art of conjuring graphic motifs from milk foam onto the surface of coffee drinks. They are usually created by a professional barista by skilfully pouring the milk and using tools such as templates or a milk jug. Leaves, flowers or hearts are always a sure sign that your barista has made the coffee with passion.

This is how latte art works – coffee enjoyment and heavenly reputation

Latte art artists paint their pictures on the coffee surface and decorate it with unique motifs. The painting material is the milk: This is first frothed perfectly, and then skilfully poured into the coffee using a specific technique. This method creates the coffee pictures that are beautiful for us and leave a lot of room for creativity.

In recent years, milk art on coffee has become increasingly popular. There are now international barista championships, where baristi are awarded for their creations in the art of milk foam.

Your latte art at home

Try the beautiful milk froth art in your own cup. Only a few pieces of equipment are required for perfect latte art: a coffee maker for the base, a milk frother, a milk jug and of course a nice big cup so that the drawn pattern comes into its own. However, the ideal consistency of the milk froth needs to be learned – it must be creamy and thick, but not too firm.

The correct filling technique is also decisive for the beautiful art of the cup, because the milk froth has to go directly under the coffee crema in order to form a pattern. A practiced swing and even movements are already half the battle. But don’t despair if a heart doesn’t form in the first cup. As always, practice makes perfect!

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Food

These 9 Foods are Good for the Heart

You can easily incorporate foods that are good for the heart into your diet. In this article we will show you which ones are included and give you healthy recipe suggestions.

Cardiovascular diseases are a widespread problem and occur particularly in old age. With simple habits and small changes in everyday life, you can keep yourself and your heart healthy for a long time.

Of course, your heart health is inseparable from your overall health. Basically, there is no food that is only good for a certain part of your body. It is therefore also important for your general well-being to pay attention to a balanced diet, physical activity, a stress-free everyday life and healthy sleep.

In this article we would like to introduce you to foods that can support your cardiovascular system, among other things. When shopping, we recommend that you look for organic quality whenever possible. In this way you can avoid residues of chemical-synthetic pesticides and artificial fertilizers. Incidentally, most of the foods listed here are locally grown during their season. By shopping regionally and seasonally, you avoid unnecessarily long and climate-damaging transport routes. You can read about the seasons of regional fruit and vegetables in our seasonal calendar.

Berries are heart strengthening foods

Berries contain many antioxidants. There is a lot of the blue pigment anthocyanin in dark berries such as blueberries, blackberries or black currants in particular. This substance is one of the flavonoids that have various positive effects on the cardiovascular system. According to the Federal Center for Nutrition, they can, among other things, strengthen the immune system, prevent blood clots, regulate blood sugar and blood pressure. You can eat berries just like that, use them as a topping for your muesli or use them in blueberry muffins, for example.

Green foods that are good for the heart

Especially dark green leafy vegetables and certain herbs and spices have a positive effect on your heart. They contain many different vitamins, minerals and fiber. These include in particular provitamin A, vitamin C, B vitamins, folic acid, potassium and magnesium. For example, you can prepare a refreshing lamb’s lettuce, a warm kale, chard or spinach dish. All of these dishes can also be refined with Italian herbs.

Red and orange foods that are good for the heart

Red and orange foods also contain the flavonoids mentioned earlier. Carrots, tomatoes and sweet potatoes in particular also contain so-called carotenoids. According to BZfE, this plant substance has a cell-protecting and cholesterol-lowering effect, which is positive for your cardiovascular system. Tasty recipes that you can try with these vegetables are for example a carrot ginger soup, a sweet potato curry or classic tomato recipes like tomato salad or tomato sauce.

Whole grain foods are good for the heart

In addition to many vitamins and minerals, whole grain products contain fiber in particular. According to the German Society for Nutrition (dge), a good supply of all three groups reduces the risk of various diseases. These include cardiovascular diseases, but also type 2 diabetes, dyslipidemia and colon cancer. Foods that provide you with healthy fiber are, for example, wholemeal pasta, wholemeal bread or oatmeal.

Legumes as heart-strengthening foods

Legumes are also generally very rich in nutrients and, in addition to protein, fat and fiber, contain B vitamins and folic acid in particular. The secondary plant substance saponin, which has a cholesterol-lowering effect, can also be found in abundance in legumes. In everyday life you can, for example, prepare a lentil soup, a tempeh dish or a pea stew to benefit from the healthy effects of the legumes.

Nuts: Unsaturated fats are good for the heart

In addition to vitamins and minerals, nuts also contain monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids. According to the BZfE, these properties have a particularly good effect on your blood lipid levels and your cardiovascular system. To benefit from this, you can eat all kinds of nuts. These are, for example, walnuts, macadamia nuts, almonds, pistachios, cashew nuts, Brazil nuts, pecan nuts or hazelnuts.

Olive oil promotes heart health

Regular consumption of at least half a tablespoon of olive oil per day is not only associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease. The oil is also said to protect against neurodegenerative diseases, cancer and respiratory diseases. For example, you can use olive oil in a salad dressing, homemade hummus, or spaghetti aglio e olio.

Onions and garlic are good for the heart

Onions and garlic in particular contain sulfides. Among other things, these are associated with blood pressure-regulating, cholesterol-lowering and blood clot-preventing effects. You can use onions and garlic in a variety of ways in the kitchen: they refine numerous hearty recipes, such as a pepper and vegetable pan or a broccoli and potato casserole.

Tea as a food that is good for the heart

Teas contain phytochemicals such as flavonoids, tannins and catechins. These are also associated with cardiovascular protective effects. You also have a large selection of different types of this food. Try it with a green tea, white tea or herbal tea.

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