Dr Oz: Wendy Williams + Heart Disease Signs & Awareness

Dr Oz: Wendy Williams Heart Disease Awareness

Dr Oz and his audience were all wearing red in support of the fight against heart disease. He welcomed Wendy Williams who is also passionate about raising awareness for the issue. She has instances of heart disease in her family and wants to live a long, healthy life. She admitted that she doesn’t work out at least twenty minutes a day, but shoots for twice a week. She doesn’t eat meat and tries to live as cleanly as possible.

Wendy acknowledged that when she was in her 20’s, she didn’t focus on her health as much, and was more focused on enjoying partying and eating bad food. She said when she turned 50, it hit her that she wanted to live a long life, so she was prepared to do what she needed to make that happen.

Dr Oz: Are You At Risk For Heart Disease?

Dr Oz asked his audience questions, and asked them to stand up and stay standing if their answer was ever yes. First, do you get less than 20 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise every day? Do you drink more than one serving of alcohol per day? Do you watch an hour or more of television per day? Do you eat a lot of red meat, processed, or refined foods? Finally, are you overweight?

Wendy Williams admitted that the exercise question is a yes for her, and she watches at least five hours of TV a day, but she eats healthy and weighs 145 pounds at 5’11”. Wendy actually teamed up Burlington stores and Women Heart, a national coalition for women with heart disease. For every #HealthyHeart selfie, Burlington will donate a dollar to go toward educating women about heart disease.

Dr Oz: Surprising Heart Attack Triggers

Wendy then revealed the surprising heart attack triggers you should know about to stop a heart attack before it happens. Stress is one of the biggest triggers, so you have to find what works for you to help relieve stress. Another hidden trigger is shoveling snow, because exerting yourself in cold water, the arteries have shrunk down but your body is trying to pump more blood, leading to a heart attack. In the winter time, there are 53% more heart attacks than in the summer.

Dr Oz also shared that your grip strength is a good predictor of heart disease. People with weak grip strength have more heart attacks. You should use a squeeze stress ball for 15 minutes a day. You also should avoid eating big meals because your heart attack risk quadruples after big meals.

Dr Oz: When Should You Get Checked For Heart Disease?

Dr Oz then wanted to give Wendy Williams a chance to take questions from women in the audience, starting with a woman who wondered at what age women should begin checking for heart disease. If you have a family history of heart disease, you should first get checked at 20, then at 35 and then again every two years after that, unless you have a current issue.

If you have heart disease in your family, it’s important to get an ultrasound of your arteries and maybe a scan of your heart to see if there is calcium in the arteries. Another woman asked how long it would take her heart to rebuild itself after she quit smoking, and Dr Oz explained that within days everything gets better. It takes about a year for your stroke rate to go back to zero and about five years for your heart disease risk to go back to normal.

If you change your lifestyle and diet for the better, you can see an improvement in your heart disease risk in just six weeks. It was also reported that for women, what happens during pregnancy can increase your risk of heart disease later in life, and autoimmune diseases and inflammatory diseases increase your risk for heart disease.

You can head to any Burlington store and donate at check out to help the fight against heart disease.