Antioxidant Drinks for a Healthy Heart

Red wine isn't the only beverage that helps keep your arteries clear. Here are two other mighty fine choices: cranberry juice and tea.

Both are bursting with heart-protective flavonoids. To get the RealAge-recommended daily dose, you can drink several cups of tea (any kind will do) or two and a half small glasses of cranberry juice a day. Yup, it's that easy.

All About Your Arteries
Whole fruits and veggies are good flavonoid sources, too. But it's nice to know that what you drink can help nudge you toward the RealAge goal of 31 milligrams of flavonoids daily. Get enough and you'll not only help give heart disease the boot but also fend off peripheral artery disease (PAD) -- a condition that reduces blood flow to the limbs and vital organs. OJ and tomato juice have lots of flavonoids, too, by the way. (Find out your heart attack risk now.)

Extra Protection
Stave off artery disease with these additional love-your-heart steps:

• Kick butt. Smokers are at particularly high risk. Check out the YOU Docs' plan to quit for good.
• Lace up your walking shoes. Carve out 30 minutes during your day to pound the pavement. Here's the gait speed you should strive for.
• Love the good fats. That means grabbing nuts (not chips) and olive oil (not butter) and eating lots of this.

Watch this video on how to toast nuts.

Flavonoid classes and risk of peripheral arterial occlusive disease: a case-control study in Greece. Lagiou, P. et al., European Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2006 Feb;60(2):214-219.