Taking care of your heart does not just involve a healthy diet and regular workouts. It also includes making lifestyle changes and removing habits that may be harming your heart more than you know.
In an Instagram post shared on August 11, Dr Alok Chopra, functional medicine expert and cardiologist, shared his insights on 5 tips that can help preserve your heart health. He also warned against some common lifestyles and popular trends, including vaping and cooking in non-stick pans. Let’s find out what the cardiologist suggested:
How to preserve your heart health?
1. Vaping: When asked about vaping and how it is becoming one of the more popular trends among Gen Z, Dr Chopra warned that vaping is not better than smoking; in fact, it’s worse than smoking. According to data provided by the National Health Institutes (NIH), vaping has been found to cause similar effects as smoking on lung function and cardiovascular function.
2. Alcohol consumption: Some people think that drinking alcohol occasionally or only on the weekends is not that harmful to their bodies. Answering the age-old question, ‘How often should we drink?’, he clarified, “I think once or twice a week is best. Try to avoid hard liquor; red wine and white wine are better options.”
3. Non-stick pans: As for non-stick pans, the cardiologist cautioned that people should not use them for long because they are very harmful to your body. The layer in the non-stick pan will ultimately break down, although you won’t see it happening.
4. 2 meals a day: A lot of people who go to the gym these days believe that eating six times a day is the only option. However, Dr Chopra stated, “If I eat 100 times a day or three or six times a day, I am storing fat six times a day. That is why we say do not eat more than twice.”
5. Allulose: Laslty, allulose is often considered a good alternative to sugar. Per the cardiologist, allulose is made from table sugar and is better than sugar, but it is still sugar. Therefore, portion control is the key.