Fish Oil Fish oil’s heart-healthy benefits include lowering blood pressure, triglycerides and blood-clotting tendencies.

CoQ10 CoQ10 is vital for energy production in muscle cells, especially in the heart.

shares Goldberg. Sex is even safe following successful bypass surgery or angioplasty with stent, after you get over the aches and pains of the procedures, she adds. The same cardiac stress test utilized to give you a green light with exercise will indicate when it’s safe to resume sexual activity.

Maximize Your
Medications.

It’s the rare patient who doesn’t get discharged after a heart attack with a handful of new prescriptions. If you are on a statin drug, Stephen Sinatra, M.D., cardiologist and author of

The

Sinatra Solution: Metabolic Cardiology (Basic Health, 2005) recommends supplementing with “a minimum of 100 to 200 mg of coenzyme Q10 to prevent serious coenzyme Q10 depletion.” CoQ10 is a powerful antioxidant highly concentrated in heart cells, where it is essential for the production of energy by these muscle cells.

While many dietary supplements support a healthy heart and body, there are a few supplements (and even foods) that shouldn’t be taken when you are on certain heart medications, including: Digoxin: St. John’s wort (It can reduce blood levels of this medication.) Diuretics: Licorice (It can intensify the side effects of these drugs.)

Statins: Red rice yeast (It contains the

B Complex The B vitamins, chiefly B6, B12 and folic acid, reduce homocysteine, a major risk factor for heart disease.

Niacin Niacin lowers the worst risk factor for heart disease: lipoprotein (a).

same compound as statins, so increases the total dosage of this drug.)

Statins and high blood pressure medications: Grapefruit juice (It might increase the potency of these medications.) Ticlopidine: Garlic and

Ginkgo biloba

(They present a slight risk for increased bleeding.)

Warfarin (Coumadin): CoQ10 (might interfere with the proper function of this drug) and Ginkgo biloba (could reduce clotting time and increase bleeding)

A Heart Attack Alone? How to Save Yourself

■ “At the moment of the first sign of a heart attack, your clock begins ticking, and you start the toughest race of all: the race to save your own life,” says Nieca Goldberg, M.D. Optimally, get to a hospital within an hour in order to benefit from clot-busting medications and other time-sensitive treatments that can save heart muscle. Don’t delay if

you’re worried that you might be mistaken about your symptoms. As Goldberg stresses, it’s far better to risk being wrong than risk being dead.

Even if someone else is with you (but especially if you are alone), call 911 immediately. It’s better to have an ambulance transport you to the hospital; plus, paramedics can help if

additional complications arise and might be able to administer medications to lessen the amount of heart damage. While waiting for the ambulance, chew an aspirin, says Stephen Sinatra, M.D. If you start to feel lightheaded or dizzy while waiting for help, he advises, “Try coughing to improve blood flow to the right coronary artery.”