What is the meaning behind National Wear Red Day?
Did you know that young moms are more likely to die of heart disease than other medical problems or that women are less likely to receive bystander CPR? National Wear Red Day aims to increase awareness.
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00:00 Dr. Lakshmi Mehta is a volunteer expert with the American Heart Association.
00:05 Thank you so much for joining us this morning.
00:08 Thank you for having me.
00:10 And I like that you're already in your red blazer there,
00:13 adding just a touch of red here ahead of the big day tomorrow.
00:16 Well, cardiovascular disease, unfortunately, is the number one killer of women.
00:21 And what makes the Go Red for Women message so important?
00:25 Well, the American Heart Association recognizes that women really aren't aware of heart disease being their number one killer.
00:32 For instance, do you know that young moms are more likely to die from heart disease than other types of medical problems,
00:40 or that women are less likely to receive bystander CPR?
00:44 And so if we need to raise awareness, and that's why the American Heart Association has the National Wear Red Day,
00:51 to increase the awareness so women can take their heart health seriously and make a difference for their life.
00:57 I didn't know a lot of that.
00:59 And, you know, speaking of a woman and a mom myself, that's very, very helpful information.
01:03 In addition to that, I'm also a meteorologist.
01:05 So we want to tie in the weather, and especially in winter, we talk about cold weather.
01:09 So can you share some signs and symptoms that we can get when it comes to the cold weather and heart disease?
01:15 Yeah, so we know that when the weather is really cold outside, our bodies, the vessels, the arteries in our body tend to constrict,
01:24 which then increases the pressure in our blood pressure as well as our heart rate, which can be taxing on someone.
01:31 And so if you're someone who doesn't normally exercise and you're suddenly out in the cold, trying to do physical activity like shoveling snow,
01:39 that can be taxing and lead to heart attacks.
01:42 And so that's why we recommend to people to practice safely when they're even doing a task like shoveling snow.
01:48 You know, we want our viewers to make sure they warm up before going out to do that physical exertion
01:54 and to wear warm clothing so that they can preserve some core body temperature so there's less constriction.
02:00 Yeah, and if you're doing that tomorrow, wear warm red clothing as a reminder.
02:04 I'm all about kind of the preventative health.
02:06 So I think what are going to be some healthy activities that people can participate in, not just on Friday, but every day?
02:14 Yeah, so some of the activities is I think the number one thing we want to make sure at the American Heart Association is that everyone recognizes that they need to know their numbers for heart disease.
02:23 So they need to see their provider to get their blood pressure checked, to get their blood sugar checked and their body mass index.
02:29 But then they need to be active.
02:31 So our guidelines from the American Heart Association is to participate in moderate intensity activity of 150 minutes per week or at least 75 minutes of vigorous activity per week.
02:42 Obviously, we would recommend people to be active every day and to increase that amount.
02:47 We also want people to follow a healthy diet, you know, limiting the saturated fats, limiting the sugars in their diet.
02:54 And another important thing is to make sure you're not smoking and also to make sure you're getting adequate sleep.
03:00 We all forget about sleep, but we recommend seven to nine hours of sleep for adults to be healthy.
03:06 That's tough.
03:07 I'm sure everybody here on the morning show just cringed with that because our hours are a little bit difficult.
03:12 But hey, even if you can just do small little steps, what you gave is a lot of good information, but maybe overwhelming.
03:17 So just start small and try to make your way healthy.
03:19 And one great way, of course, is to be wearing red tomorrow to just keep the conversation going.
03:24 Well, thank you.
03:26 Yeah, we appreciate it so much.
03:28 Dr. Laxmi Mehta from the American Heart Association.
03:31 We appreciate you joining us this morning.