5 Vitamins and Minerals for your Heart

The Heart is the engine of human body, its job is to pump blood throughout your body for gas exchange and providing nutrition. To keep it simple, a Heart will never stop pumping throughout human lifetime. Like any other organ, it is composed of several cells and needs proper nutrition for it to function properly. This includes a low fat, high fiber diet.

Magnesium

Main Food Source: Green vegetables such as spinach are good sources of magnesium, legumes (beans and peas), nuts and seeds, and whole, unrefined grains are also good sources of magnesium.

Benefits:

1. Reducing risk of High blood pressure.
2. Consuming adequate levels of magnesium may help insulin function properly in the body, which may prevent type 2 diabetes.

Read More: Office of dietary supplement

Folic Acid (Folate/Vitamin B)

Main Food Source: Leafy vegetables such as spinach and turnip greens, dried beans and peas, sunflower seeds.

Vitamin B-6: Beef liver, baked potatoes, watermelon, and banana.
Vitamin B-12: Milk, meats (beef, lamb, veal, fish, poultry), eggs, and cheese.

Benefits: The amount of homocysteine in the blood, a marker for heart disease, is regulated by folic acid. High levels of homocysteine can lead to damaging of the blood vessel walls and promote blood clots. Folic Acid helps to lower the concentrations of homocysteine.

Read More: Real Age

Niacin (another Vitamin B)

Main Food Source: Dairy products, poultry, fish, lean meats, nuts, and eggs. Legumes and enriched breads and cereals may also contain niacin.

Benefits: Helps increase HDL or "good" cholesterol levels.

Read More: Health 24

Potassium

Main Food Source: Dairy, bananas, potatoes, peaches, raisins, winter squash, baked potato with skin and apricots.

Benefits: Helps regulate blood pressure levels, and high blood pressure, or hypertension, is a major risk factor for heart disease.

Read More: Colorado State University Extension Nutrient Resources

Calcium

Main Food Source: Milk (low fat high calcium), Dairy, Soy, Almonds, Broccoli

Benefits: It helps weight management, which indirectly affects heart disease risk, it also helps regulates blood pressure along with magnesium and potassium.

Read More: Health A to Z

Main Source: WebMD