Susan Lucci puts her heart into clean food.
After two heart surgeries in the past five years, All My Children Alum makes sure you always buy salmon, blueberries and kale when you visit the grocery store.
“My doctor told me, ‘Keep doing what you’re doing because something good will come of it,'” the 77-year-old daytime TV legend said Fox News, explaining that he follows a Mediterranean diet.
“Sometimes I eat pasta and carbs,” said Lucci, who is now an ambassador for the American Heart Association. “I like cheese, but I don’t eat it much, rarely ever. I like ice cream, but in moderation. It’s all about moderation.”
She tries to avoid foods rich in cholesterol, which she didn’t always do.
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Susan Lucci.
Kevin Winter/Getty
“My husband was an executive chef trained in Europe,” she said of her late husband, Helmut Huber. “I remember that I would eat everything he cooked. It was like monopoly food. And I built up cholesterol.”
Lucci switched to a diet full of superfoods – and does Pilates daily – which is why she initially ignored her heart symptoms.
In October 2018, she began to feel intense pressure in her chest “like an elephant pressing down” and pain around her ribs. “Like most women, I thought, ‘I have too much to do. This will pass.’ I didn’t want to bother the cardiologist,” she told PEOPLE in March 2023. “We take care of our kids, we’re advocates for our loved ones, but we’re not at the top of our own to-do list.”
Susan Lucci on her 2 heart surgeries: ‘I didn’t know how close I was to a fatal heart attack’
A scan revealed a 90% blockage in a major artery in her heart: “I didn’t realize how close I was to a fatal heart attack,” she said, needing emergency surgery and a stent inserted into her heart, which is a tube that helps keep the passageway open. Her condition turned out to be genetic (“inherited on her dad’s side”) and doctors put in two stents.
In January 2022, after enjoying a lot of “comfort food” during the pandemic — “which is not my usual way of eating,” she said — Lucci had another big scare.
The medical team subsequently discovered an 80 percent blockage in the artery – this time caused by cholesterol – and inserted another stent into her heart to open the blockage after she was rushed to a cardiac catheterization lab.
Now feeling healthy, Lucci wants to remind other women to pay attention to the signs.
“My message to women is to listen to your body,” she said Fox News. “Always put yourself on your to-do list. We don’t even put ourselves on the list. I’m happy to be here to tell my story.”
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education