Vitamins Keep Your Heart Fighting Fit

by Perry Stamide

Vitamins are essential to keep your heart healthy. Of course, you need to eat the right foods with less fat and cholesterol, but you need to supplement your food with vitamins to keep your body in the best shape and your heart pumping for a long time.

You need Vitamin E to improve the overall health of your heart. Vitamin E plays a vital role in stopping cholesterol in the body from oxidizing and harming the arteries that surround the heart. This is crucial or else when cholesterol oxidizes, it tends to stick to the sides of the arteries and cause buildup and possible blockage subsequently leading to heart attacks and other problems.

Doctors often recommend additional supplements of vitamin E. Or, they suggest you include more foods rich in vitamin E in your diet. Nuts, like almonds, for example, are a terrific way to get your daily dose of vitamin E.

Vitamin E is also very helpful in the recuperation process post heart attack. It prevents additional heart attacks by encouraging the arteries to be more open and less susceptible to blockage.

To make vitamin E work even better, those concerned about heart disease may want to supplement their diets with vitamin C as well. As an antioxidant, it also helps to prevent the damaging effects of cholesterol, but it is also being shown to aid vitamin E in its healthful effects.

Vitamin C works with vitamin E to improve the body's ability to maintain a healthier arteries and heart. And allows your arteries to function unhampered. If you are a heart patient, or think you are at risk when it comes to heart problems, you might do well to take supplements of vitamin C and E in addition to taking them in your diet.

So how much should you take? Well, ideal doses may vary from patient to patient, but 400 IU (international units) of vitamin E seems to work well for most people. Vitamin C is tolerable in higher doses without harmful effects. You can safely take 500 milligram of vitamin C twice a day, mornings and evenings, to help keep your heart fighting fit.

Many studies have authenticated the benefits of these vitamins. But, if you are on any other medications, you must consult your doctor before taking vitamin supplements, because you might have to make some alterations to avoid adverse reactions.

Of course, the best way to get your daily allowance of these vitamins is through your diet. But in some cases you might have to supplement your diet with tablets to improve your heart health.

Perry Stamide runs the web site and writes for Fed Vitamins which is a premier resource for vitamins on the Net. Please visit http://www.fedvitamins.com for any questions or comments about this article.

Useful Links