CHENNAI: The theme for World Heart Day (September 29) for this year is ‘Use Heart for Action’. When compared to developed countries and other Asian counties, Indian population is suffering more from heart attacks. Affected by the deadly duo of diabetes and high blood pressure, which are also highly prevalent in younger people, we Indians are nearly 10 to 20 years earlier in suffering from heart attacks compared to other nations. Not only heart attacks, but its related deaths are also more, leading to gross economic burden due to long disabled life years.
One of the famous medial studies known as INTERHEART study, showed that except genetic ailments, the rest of the heart disease related risk factors which consist of 80% to 90%, can easily be controlled if taken care of well. If you have diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels, appropriate control will significantly reduce the risk of heart attack.
Avoiding some addictions like smoking and excess alcohol intake are also crucial. Our India is in the stage of lifestyle change induced diseases (especially urban affluent population).
Switching from longstanding traditional food and changing from healthy lifestyle habits to rapid and westernised dietary options have significantly resulted in obesity and a sedentary life. Compared to our older generations who suffered from more of communicable diseases, the current Indian population is affected by diseases due to lifestyle changes as reported in Global burden of diseases.
Lack of proper exercise and significant mental stress are very important elements for heart attacks in youngsters even though they don’t have high BP, sugar and other conventional risk factors of heart attack.
Hence, it’s high time to know about our heart, the un-tired horse which works for every second throughout our life. The tragic part is, only our heart is working properly in our body, not our brain and other physical organs. It simply means we also need good mind-peace, recreation, relaxation etc to avoid stress either in our personal life or in our work environment. An equally important thing is physical exercise.
In the current gadget-driven world, physical activity and appropriate exercise are very minimal even from childhood age, building up the heart disease risk profile. Mostly our life has become like “Idle body and roaming mind” which is the typical substrate for a heart attack. It is time to reverse it. “Move your body and rest your mind” for a healthy heart to live longer.
(The writer is a senior interventional cardiologist, Gleneagles Hospital, Chennai)