Health Tips for May 22

Health Tip: Heart-Healthy Diet Should Start in Infancy

It's never too early to begin a heart-healthy diet -- even in infancy, the American Heart Association says.

Here are the AHA's recommendations:

* Breast-feeding offers babies the right nutritional balance until between 4 months and 6 months of age, when other foods should gradually be introduced to supplement breast-feeding.
* Avoid giving your baby 100 percent juice drinks until at least 6 months of age, then limit the amount to 4 ounces to 6 ounces per day.
* Be careful not to give infants and young children too much food, and don't force them to eat everything on their plate.
* Offer your child plenty of healthy foods. Even if the child isn't initially interested, continue to offer these foods.
* Avoid offering unhealthy foods just to get your child to eat something.

Health Tip: How a Pacemaker Helps the Heart

A pacemaker is a small, battery-powered device that is implanted in the skin of the chest or abdomen, and helps regulate the heartbeat.

Here are reasons for why a pacemaker may be prescribed, courtesy of the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute:

* To correct a slow, fast or irregular heartbeat.
* To ensure that the heart's ventricles contract normally, in cases of atrial fibrillation.
* To regulate the electrical signals between the upper and lower chambers of the heart, and in other cases, between the ventricles of the heart.