There are many steps people can take to try to prevent heart disease. You can start by concentrating on key lifestyle areas such as eating, exercise, smoking and drinking, and considering other factors like family history, diabetes and stress.

Here are ten easy steps to better heart health:

1. Stop smoking.
Nourish yourself with a handful of sunflower seeds and a cup of nettle or oat straw infusion daily for 4 to 6 weeks before quitting. Sunflower seeds reduce the body’s craving for nicotine by filling the nicotine receptor sites. The infusions strengthen blood vessels and nerves and cushions the impact of withdrawal.

2. Touch and be touched.
Many scientific studies have shown that people who were touched lovingly every day had significantly fewer heart problems than the control group.

3. Eat seaweeds.
They have been shown to stabilize blood pressure, regulate levels of triglycerides, phospholipids and cholesterols, they dissolve fatty build-ups in the blood vessels, they can restore cardiac efficiency and prolong the life of the heart muscle, and they encourage a steady heart beat.

4. Eat foods rich in beta-carotenes: they can cut your risk of a stroke by 40 percent.
Foods rich in beta-carotenes include carrots, cabbage, winter squash, sweet potatoes, dark leafy greens, apricots, and seaweed. (We try to include a few beta-carotene rich recipes in every issue of Eat Well Naturally and Green Cuisine.)

5. Eat garlic.
Study after study has confirmed garlic’s abilities to lower blood pressure, reduce phospholipids and cholesterol, strengthen heart action, increase immune response, reduce platelet clumping and clotting (thus reducing strokes) and stabilize blood sugar levels. Eat garlic raw or lightly cooked, several cloves a day.

6. Manage your weight.
The number of people who are overweight in Britain is rising fast - already more than half of the adult population is overweight or obese. Carrying a lot of extra weight as fat can greatly affect your health and increases the risk of life-threatening conditions such as coronary heart disease and diabetes. If you are overweight or obese, start by making small, but healthy changes to what you eat, and try to become more active.

7. Get your blood pressure and cholesterol levels checked by your GP.
The higher your blood pressure, the shorter your life expectancy. People with high blood pressure run a higher risk of having a stroke or a heart attack. High levels of cholesterol in the blood - produced by the liver from saturated fats - can lead to fatty deposits in your coronary arteries that increase your risk of coronary heart disease, stroke, and diseases that affect the circulation. You can help lower your cholesterol level by exercising and eating high-fibre foods such as porridge, beans, pulses, lentils, nuts, fruits and vegetables.

8. Learn to manage your stress levels.
If you find things are getting on top of you, you may fail to eat properly, smoke and drink too much and this may increase your risk of a heart attack.

9. Check your family history .
If a close relative is at risk of developing coronary heart disease from smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, lack of physical activity, obesity and diabetes, then you could be at risk too.

10. Make sure you can recognise the early signs of coronary heart disease .
Tightness or discomfort in the chest, neck, arm or stomach which comes on when you exert yourself but goes away with rest may be the first sign of angina, which can lead to a heart attack if left untreated.