It's never too early to start thinking about your heart health, especially when it comes to managing your blood pressure. While genetics can play a role in hypertension, it is possible to lower your risk by creating healthy habits early in life.
Dr. Alex Vasquez not only treats people with heart disease, but also works as a preventative cardiologist for otherwise healthy individuals.
As such, he's all too familiar with the lifestyle factors that can lead to high blood pressure.
"Modifying and controlling your blood pressure is probably the best thing that (you) can do to reduce your risk of future cardiovascular disease," explained Vasquez. "Take your health, your parents' health, your children’s health seriously, because if you don’t start with the basic things when you’re young, this is going to translate into major complications later on."
Those complications can include congestive heart failure, stroke and kidney problems.
"When you talk about things that are easy to control when it comes to cardiovascular risk, the one that is controlled easier and can have the greatest impact on your overall health is controlling your blood pressure," Vasquez said.
Weight, sodium intake, potassium supplements, exercise routine, sleep habits and diet are all things that can be adjusted to help control blood pressure.
Vasquez said the American College of Cardiologists recommends the diet, which contains a lot of fruits, vegetables, and low-fat dairy products but avoids saturated fat, cholesterol and sugar-containing beverages.
However, changing eating habits can be one of the hardest challenges for Alabamians, he said.
"You have to avoid the high saturated fat, and (there's) a very high fat content in fried foods, which is difficult to remove from the diet of a culture," Vasquez explained, "but it’s very, very beneficial to remove, to remove your risk of cardiovascular disease."
, in 2021, more than 42% of Alabamians reported having high blood pressure. Whether you're in that group or working to avoid it, it's important to remember that change doesn't happen overnight.
Give yourself grace, and remember even small steps can make a big difference.
"Discipline is a difficult thing to develop," Vasquez said. "... It usually takes about six weeks to create a habit, so it’s important to determine what it is you need to gain, what it is you want to avoid for your diet, and set goals."
