February is National Heart Health month and Castleview Hospital wants to make sure the community knows everything there is to know about having a healthy heart so Cardiac Rehab Coordinator, Nikell Tamllos stopped by Castle Country Radio to talk.

“It’s the number one killer, number one cause of death in the U.S. and in the world. Definitely good to have a month to kind of help bring awareness to that, so a lot of what we are focusing on is just prevention and getting people to the doctor before those symptoms arise,” stated Tamllos. The term heart disease refers to several types of heart conditions. In the U.S. the most common type of heart disease is coronary artery disease.

There are some health conditions that increase the risk of heart disease as Tamllos explains, “So definitely like smoking cigarettes, using tobacco puts you at a way higher risk, 50 percent more likely to have a heart attack, things like that. Like lifestyle, eating habits, genetics, basically those are the three main things.” Drinking too much alcohol and not getting enough physical activity are behaviors that increase risk of heart disease.

Breaking those bad behaviors will decrease your chances of heart disease. “Things like controlling your blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and exercising weekly, those are a few things that we do have control over. Where as genetics, and other things we don’t really have much control over so it’s good to focus on the things that you can do, to decrease your risk,” said Tamllos.

If you have questions about your heart health, Castleview Hospital has an online Heart Health Assessment on their website. “First, I would recommend taking the Heart Health Assessment on Castleview Hospital’s website. It’s just a quick 3-minute survey and it kind of gives you some information to where you stand on that heart risk score. That’s just on https://www.castleviewhospital.net/ and you go to services, then click Cardiac Rehab and that assessment is on there,” stated Tamllos.