TLI Staff
New Delhi: With sedentary lifestyle and increasing stress, there is a need to take care of your heart more than ever before. Apart from active lifestyle, regular exercising, the consumption of processed food, tobacco, alcohol, fat, sugar and salt needs to be curbed in order to keep the heart hale and hearty. With festival season round the corner, it is especially important to be aware of your heart health and take balanced diet.
“Cardiovascular disease is the world’s number one killer today. India houses about 40 per cent of the world’s 2.6 crore patients with heart failure. However, the awareness level in people about the condition and its treatment is still poor,” says Dr. Monik Mehta – Chief & Senior Consultant Cardiology, Columbia Asia Hospital Gurugram.
“Our heart is a powerhouse that helps the entire body and brain function, and yet, we are not careful when it comes to heart health. With every passing year, more and more people are becoming victims of heart disease and efforts to combat ignorance towards the health of their heart needs to be stepped up,” he added.
Tips to keep your heart healthy by Dr Mehta
1. An active lifestyle with moderate amount of exercise and movement to prevent obesity, and reducing the amount of sugar, salt and fat in food to contain hypertension and diabetes are some key steps.
2. Fat is dangerous to the heart, and not only because it increases the risk for conditions that contribute to heart disease, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes.
3. Besides, reducing stress, as well as consumption of tobacco and alcohol can also help keep your heart healthy.
4. We need to ensure that our children exercise more and should help them to be more active, quit smoking and help our loved ones to stop
Sugar, the biggest killer
Not many people know that sugar is a leading cause for cariovascular diseases that are killing 17.5 million people a year and our dependence on fat and sugar-laden, processed food is alarming as it’s causing a variety of issues in our body.
Controlling the sugar intake is the key to tackling the problem.
“Abdominal obesity (waist circumference of 40 inches or more in men, 35 inches or more for women), high triglycerides (150 milligrams per deciliter [mg/dL] or higher), low HDL cholesterol (below 40 mg/dL for men, below 50 mg/dL for women), a blood pressure of 135/85 or higher, and insulin resistance (a fasting blood sugar of 100 mg/dL or higher) lead to cardiac arrest, hence this needs to be tackled immediately,” said Dr. Amit Bhushan, Senior Cardiologist, Paras Hospital.
(Photo credit: WHO)
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