May 24, 2012

Book Review: Prevent a Second Heart Attack: 8 Foods, 8 Weeks to Reverse Heart Disease

This is one in a series of book reviews I've posted. You may find these books beneficial if you: manage your prediabetes or diabetes, follow a diabetes meal plan and/or are trying to eat healthy to live well. These book reviews also appear on amazon.com and the books can be found in my Amazon a-store. Please check them out and consider a purchase.

book cover Nearly half a million Americans will die of heart disease this year. If you could make lifestyle changes to reduce your risk of heart disease by up to 70%, wouldn’t you start today?

Dietitian Janet Brill helps you and your loved ones keep a first heart attack from ever happening or prevent a second heart attack...in her book Prevent a Second Heart Attack: 8 Foods, 8 Weeks to Reverse Heart Disease. This book pairs the Mediterranean way of eating with physical activity.

So how can you get started? Get some guidance from Dr. Brill.

Contents in this book are divided into 3 parts:

In Part 1: Brill delves into the science behind the process of developing heart disease and the powerful benefits of prevention. You’ll learn about many studies which support eating the Mediterranean way. Helpful text boxes, graphics and bite-sized health notes keep each chapter interesting and digestible. Examples of text boxes are: Which fats belong in your kitchen? and Plaque 101. Brill uses fun phrasing to keep information memorable - like this one: “If it had a mother or a face, it has cholesterol”  - to describe foods which contain cholesterol. These memorable phrases help the reader understand the importance and relevance of lifestyle changes to prevent heart disease.

In Part 2: Brill goes on to cover exercise and offers tips to become more physically active at any level of fitness. She unveils her 8 healthy super foods to makehead shot brill a central part of your eating plan and explains why these can help you reverse heart disease. She offers strategies to integrate the 8 foods into your eating plan and how to eat more of them. She calls these prescriptions. Each food prescription has a companion food prescription. For example: one food prescription is, eat a dark leafy salad at least once a day The companion food prescription is eat at least five additional colorful veggies a day. This food prescription is a strategy to boost total antioxidant capacity to curtail inflammation. Brill provides a logical progression to make healthy eating changes. She makde these changes actionable. 

In Part 3: Brill offers resources to put this healthier way of eating into action. She provides a 14-day eating plan along with recipes which show you how to integrate the 8 heart healthy foods. These recipes will offer variety and new taste sensations. Each recipe provides nutrition information.

Prevent Your Second Heart Attack is user friendly and readable with easy to understand information. It is a book with sound science and knowledge-based tools such as recipes and tips. From the first chapter, Brill displays an exceptional ease in the way she shares her knowledge with the reader. You can start to make changes for a healthy heart today with Brill’s expertise.