America’s heart is breaking—but you have the power to mend it. Cardiovascular disease accounts for about one in three deaths in the U.S., with over 2,200 Americans dying of cardiovascular disease each day, according to the American Heart Association. Most doctors agree that prevention is the best tool for fighting the condition.

You Think Foods Labeled ‘Zero Trans Fats’ Are Safe

We know that partially hydrogenated oils are a disaster for your LDL cholesterol levels. Food manufacturers even use “zero trans fats” labels to advertise that their products are free of them—but you can’t believe everything you read. “The government allows manufacturers to put on the label ‘has zero trans fats’ if it contains less than 0.5 grams per serving,” explains Barry A. Franklin, PhD, director of cardiac rehabilitation and exercise laboratories at Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak. “There’s a lot of foods that have 0.41 to 0.49 grams of trans fats per serving. Why? Because they can put zero trans fats on the label. You should have no more than 2 grams of trans fats per day, so it doesn’t take very much to

[exceed] the daily limit. I tell patients to look at a label. If you see hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated [oils], there’s trans fats in there, so stay away from it.”

You Don’t Bother To Floss

Believe it or not, there’s a link between gum disease and heart disease. When left untreated, “gum disease leads to an inflammatory state in the entire body, thus increasing your chance of heart disease exponentially,” says cardiologist Dr. Evelina Grayver, the director of the Coronary Care Unit at Northwell Health’s North Shore University Hospital. Constant inflammation can lead to endothelial dysfunction—a state in which blood vessels are expanding and contracting abnormally—which is the first phase of premature coronary artery disease. Grayver says gum disease “can also increase risk of endocarditis—infections within your cardiac valves.” The answer? Research shows that adding flossing to your oral care routine can help reduce gum disease.

You’re Drinking the Wrong Smoothies

This may be tough to swallow. Fruit juice smoothies, which are low in fiber and high in carbs, spike blood sugar. “When you eat a pear, your blood sugar doesn’t really go up because even though it’s sweet going down, it takes your body a few hours to disentangle and digest all the sugar from all the fiber in the pear,” says Northwestern Medicine cardiac surgeon Dr. Timothy James. “But when you put the pear in the blender and you drink it, all that sugar is available in the solution. It hits your stomach, which has this large surface area and luxuriant blood supply and the sugar just leaps into your bloodstream.” That spike in sugar leads to a rise in insulin, which can lead to inflammation in the body. That’s harmful, because “the progression of plaques in your arteries seems to be partly dependent on the presence of inflammation and is accelerated by inflammation.” Instead, mix your smoothies with plant-based protein, like the fat-melting drinks in Zero Belly Smoothies.

You Have More Than One to Two Drinks Per Day

Take it easy on the booze. The American Heart Association recommends consuming (ideally, with meals) no more than one drink per day for women and two per day for men. Any more than that puts your heart at risk. “Excessive alcohol has a negative inotropic effect, which is a fancy term for meaning that it screws up the pumping capacity of the heart transiently,” says Dr. Franklin.

You Don’t Get Enough Downtime

Slowing down after work is essential to keeping your life in balance. “When you’re overwhelmed, you really can’t do those healthy things that everybody wants you to do,” says Dr. Nieca Goldberg, Medical Director of the Joan H. Tisch Center for Women’s Health at NYU Langone Medical Center. “But also you tend to have higher blood pressure and higher levels of stress hormones that increase blood sugar and belly fat.” Create boundaries between your work and leisure time. “You need to leave work and go on to some other activity, whether it’s spending time with your family or exercising or eating a meal where you’re not eating as quickly as you can,” Goldberg says.

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