Atherosclerotic vascular diseases such as coronary heart disease, cerebral infarction, and cerebral hemorrhage are common worldwide with high mortality. Cardiovascular disease is reportedly the leading cause of death around the world.
For people who pursue health and longevity, a young and healthy-functioning blood vessel system is desirable, which will pay the way for a better quality of life.
Here are three things that are damaging your blood vessels.
A diet high in fat, salt or sugar
Though] their flavors bring pleasure to your stomach, they do harm to your blood vessels.
Both animal and human studies have confirmed that consuming too much salt will lead to high blood pressure and increase the risk of developing cardiovascular diseases like stroke and coronary artery disease.
Moreover, excessive salts can damage small blood vessels in the kidney, disrupting kidney functions.
Also, too much sugar consumption will make it difficult to control blood sugar and lipid, uric acid and body weight. The long-term abnormality of these indicators could induce vascular damage.
High-fat food could accelerate the hardening of blood vascular. The buildup of blood lipid would block blood flow toward the heart, brain, and other organs, inducing cardiovascular diseases.
Smoking
Toxic substances in tobacco can damage vascular endothelial cells to affect blood sugar and lipids. They can cause red blood cells aggregation and increase blood viscosity, thus accelerating the hardening of blood vessels and the formation of thrombosis.
A large number of studies have concluded the cardiovascular disease risk of smoking:
-Smoking increases the risk of cerebral infarction by 90%
-Smoking is responsible for about 11% of acute ischemic stroke
-Smoking increases the relative risk of 1.37 and 1.21 for cerebral infarction and cerebral hemorrhage in smokers respectively.
If you are a smoker, giving it up might be the wisest thing that would bring many health benefits.
Sedentary behavior
When you completely get rid of exercise habits, your blood pressure level can significantly increase. In contrast, regular exercise is beneficial for controlling blood sugar levels.
Sometimes, if you are sedentary or standing still for long, the blood in the legs will accumulate in the blood vessels of the lower extremities, and even form small clots. In this case, you are having “deep vein thrombosis”.
It is advisable to remain a regular moderate-intensity exercise for over 30 minutes, every five times a week. Never keep sedentary on the couch for a day.