Want to Lower Your Heart Health Risk?
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When it comes to heart health, the conversation usually sounds the same: watch your blood pressure, lower your cholesterol, exercise more. Those things matter — but they’re not the whole story. This month, I’m focusing on heart health in midlife — because it’s a topic that affects nearly every woman in perimenopause, yet isn’t talked about nearly enough! One puzzle piece that often gets overlooked, especially in midlife, is inflammation. As hormones begin to shift in perimenopause, your body can become more prone to a low-grade, chronic form of inflammation — sometimes called inflamm-aging. It’s subtle, and it often flies under the radar, but it plays an important role in heart health. Research shows that ongoing inflammation can contribute to changes in blood vessels over time, including the formation of atherosclerotic plaques — one of the underlying drivers of heart attacks and strokes. What makes this tricky is that inflammation doesn’t always show up in obvious ways. For many women in midlife, it can look like:
None of these automatically mean something serious is wrong. In fact, most of the time, the picture is far less alarming than Google would have you believe! What they do tell us is that the body may be asking for a different kind of support. This is where I love taking a food-first, whole-body approach to heart health in perimenopause. Supporting inflammation isn’t about extremes or perfection. It’s about creating daily habits that help calm the body and support the heart as hormones change. Things like:
Heart health in midlife isn’t about chasing numbers or waiting for something to go wrong. It’s about understanding what’s happening beneath the surface and choosing food and habits that support your body as your hormones change. xoxo Kimberly
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