Abundant Life - Healthy Living Series

Taking Care of Your Temple!!


If someone were to ask you what the number one killer of American adults is - what would your answer be? According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the United States; one in every three deaths is from heart disease and stroke, equal to 2,200 deaths per day." http://www.cdc.gov/Features/HeartMonth/. Do you know if you are at risk for developing heart disease? Do you also know you can reduce your risk for developing heart disease? The Word of God tells us in Hosea 4:6 (NIV) "my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge".  Don't let this be you. I want to challenge you today to make it a priority in your life to take care of your temple. 1 Corinthians 3:16 (NIV) "Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?"

So what factors raise the risk for developing heart disease? Your age, gender and heredity are factors that increase the risk. However, these factors are ones that we can not change. The older we get, the more we are at risk. Men are at a greater risk in their younger years, but as women get older, their risk for developing heart disease increases as well. But there is good news  - the other risk factors include those we can control or change. They are:

elevated cholesterol
elevated blood pressure
diabetes
smoking
physical inactivity
obesity
stress
alcohol abuse
poor diet & nutrition

We may not be able to control the fact that our blood pressure, cholesterol or blood sugars have gotten out of control due to genetics or age, but we can make healthy lifestyle choices and take our medications to control their long term effects on our bodies. By the way, the more risk factors you have the greater your risk for developing heart disease. To discover your 10 year risk of having a heart attack or from dying of heart disease, complete the Heart Attack Risk Calculator  at
 https://www.heart.org/gglRisk/locale/en_US/index.html?gtype=health

Next week we will begin to take a closer look at those risk factors we can change.
Have a blessed week!!
In Christ,
Rhonda