by Mario Carini

Created on: February 06, 2009

Heart disease is the second largest killer next to cancer and followed closely behind by diabetes. While there is no virus that causes heart disease, it is a symptom of living a life that creates the base that leads to heart attack and strokes. It is estimated that some 80 million Americans have some of the symptoms that will ultimately lead to debilitating illness and death.

There is no one cause that can lead to a diagnosis of heart disease. Most of them are due to lifestyle and health related factors. Heredity plays a small part. Avoiding heart disease is as simple as making a change in lifestyle. Here are just some of those factors that can lead to heart disease:

* Diet is a major contributor. What we eat will have a major impact on future health. Today's diet consist of high fat, high sugar and highly processed and refined foods. They lack nutrition. Most Americans are woefully deficient in many vitamins and minerals and don't even meet the minimum RDA requirements that our health agencies say we need for optimum health. What wholesome fruits and vegetables we do eat lack essential nutrients as they come from farms whose soil has been depleted of those nutrients due to over-farming. Add to that the chemicals, pesticides, hormones and irradiation treatments and you ingest more chemicals than vitamins. Hardly a scenario for good health. Eating organic food, though more expensive, is far better healthwise than what you pick up from the gorcery shelf.

* Exercise. It bears repeating. Cubicle and home life on the couch is not conducive to health and vitality. Humans are meant to be active. Our bodies are designed to use up energy through physical and productive activity. Hours spent before a computer monitor does not help burn off calories. The consequences of a sedentary lifestyle is weight gain and increasingly clogged arteries. While exercise doe not require running a marathon, simple daily activities such as walking can do your health a world of good. The point of exercise is to get the blood circulating and supplying all parts of the body with much needed oxygen and the nutrients needed to maintain health.

* Stress and Sleep. We're all trying to run the treadmill, paying bills and worrying excessively about our families and jobs. We rush more, make more mistakes and that all adds up to a great deal of stress. Learning to relax is a lost art among many people. They can't sleep and if they do, it is interrupted. The body simply needs some time to recover but

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