25 Secrets to a Healthy Heart

Here are a few tips that you'll never read in the pages of Men's Health: Exercise regularly, watch your diet, don't smoke, and limit your drinking. Great advice, right? But you know this stuff already. Our mission, as editors of the world's largest men's magazine on the planet, is to pore through the latest research and tease out tips you've never heard before. Here are just a few of the revelations we reported in our breaking news channel at MensHealth.com over the past few days:

• Doing 45 minutes of cardio 5 days a week can take 10 years off your age, biologically speaking.
• Fasting may help cure cancer. 
• Regularly drinking diet soda increases your risk of heart attack and stroke by 43 percent.
• Adopting a low-carb diet can reverse the progress of diabetes.

With every story and every tip, we aim for specific, practical, and empowering; and it's all backed by experts and science. So it is with the list below—the best advice you'll ever read about keeping your heart healthy. February is Heart Disease Awareness month. That means there’s no better time than right now to take this advice to, well, heart:

EAT

1. Rise and Dine
In a study of 3,900 people, Harvard researchers found that men who ate breakfast every day were 44 percent less likely to be overweight and 41 percent less likely to develop insulin resistance, both risk factors for heart disease. Eggs and whole-grain cereal are great choices.

2. Refill Your Breakfast Bowl
A study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reports that two servings of whole-grain cereal (Cheerios count) a day can reduce a man's risk of dying of heart disease by nearly 20 percent.

3. Don't Let Your Tank Hit Empty
A study in the British Medical Journal found that people who eat six or more small meals a day have 5 percent lower cholesterol levels than those who eat one or two large meals. That's enough to shrink your risk of heart disease by 10 to 20 percent.

4. Snack on Nuts
Harvard researchers found that men who replaced 127 calories of carbohydrates—that's about 14 Baked Lays potato chips—with 1 ounce of nuts decreased their risk of heart disease by 30 percent. Try the Planter's NUT·rition Men's Health mix!

5. Fish for Tuna
Omega-3 fats in tuna help strengthen heart muscle, lower blood pressure, and prevent clotting—as well as reduce levels of potentially deadly inflammation in the body. Plus, tuna's high in protein. Research shows that consuming more protein may lower a man's risk of heart disease by nearly 26 percent.

6. Bring on the Beans
Beans are a great source of homocysteine-lowering folate and cholesterol-lowering soluble fiber. Tulane University researchers found that people who ate four or more servings a week had a 22 percent lower risk of developing heart disease (and 75 percent fewer camping companions) than less-than-once-a-week bean eaters.

7. Eat More Apples
Men who frequently eat apples have a 20 percent lower risk of developing heart disease than men who eat apples less often.

8. And Grapes
University of Connecticut researchers discovered that fresh grapes provide cholesterol-lowering, artery-clearing protection similar to that you get from drinking concentrated grape juice or wine.

9. And Grapefruit
One a day can reduce arterial narrowing by 46 percent, lower your bad-cholesterol level by more than 10 percent, and help drop your blood pressure by more than 5 points.

NEXT: DRINK >>