Taking Care of Your HEART

Heart diseases are a leading cause of death globally, taking approximately 18 million lives each year. It’s never late to take care of your heart and improve health by not only reducing chances of heart attack and stroke, but increasing life expectancy.

The purpose of this blog is to create awareness about various causes of heart disease, prevention and management of complications, and lifestyle modifications for improving heart health.

What are the signs of an unhealthy heart?
Consult a physician if you show any one of these symptoms:

• Shortness of breath with activity
• Irregular heartbeat
• Chest pain or discomfort
• Pain in arms, neck, jaw, back or left shoulder, epigastric pain or nausea
• Swelled feet, ankles, or legs
• Generalized weakness and fatigue
• Persistent cough

What is the different type of heart diseases?
Following are the different types of heart diseases involving various parts of heart:

• Most common is Heart vessel (coronary arteries diseases)
• Abnormal rate or rhythm of heart (arrythmias)
• Heart failure (due to uncontrolled blood pressure or chronic heart problems)
• Heart valve diseases
• Birth defects in heart (congenital heart disease)
• Heart muscles diseases (cardiomyopathies)
• Heart covering membranes (pericardial)

What is coronary heart disease (CHD)?
It occurs when blood vessels supplying heart become narrow or get hard due to buildup of clot (atherosclerosis).

What is cardiovascular risk?
These are risks of formation of clots and fat plaques in the blood vessels resulting in narrowing or blockage.

What are non-modifiable risk factors for heart disease?
We cannot modify these factors but can become more careful:

• Male
• Age more than 65 years
• Family history of high cholesterol

What are modifiable risk factors of heart disease?

• Obesity
• Smoking
• High blood pressure
• Diabetes mellitus
• Physical inactivity

What are contributing risk factors?

• Stress
• Alcoholism, and
• Diet

What are the warning signs of clogged blood vessels?

• These warning signs are due to inability of heart to pump according to needs of body:
• Extreme breathlessness on exertion
• Feeling  of chest tightness and difficulty in breathing
• It’s also accompanied with severe fatigue

How smoking increases risk of heart disease?
The chemicals such as nicotine and carbon monoxide increase clot formation in blood vessels and also put strain on heart by increasing heartbeat.

Which fruits are best for heart?
All berries like strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, blueberries are rich in anti-oxidant chemical  anthocyanin which reduces the damage of oxidative stress and inflammatory damage of heart.

What is dietary advice for reducing heart diseases?

• Reduce salt intake.
• Avoid deep fried, salty foods, take instead grilled, roasted or food prepared in less oil.
• Use olive, sunflower or canola oil but avoid butter and cream.
• Avoid using red meat, full cream dairy products and bakery items.
• Take egg whites daily but take yolks only once a week.
• Take white meat, poultry, and fish 2 to 3 times a week.
• Take whole or multi grain bread.
• Take plenty of fresh vegetables and fruits. If you are diabetic then avoid underground vegetables and high sugar content fruits like dates, mangoes, peach, grapes.
• Take a hand full of nuts daily like almonds, peanuts, walnuts to increase good cholesterol.

How can we improve our heart health?
Heart muscles can become strong and healthy by:

• Regular exercise
• More physical activity
• Weight reduction
• Control of blood pressure and blood glucose levels
• Stress reduction
• Adequate sleep

Remember, heart is a vital organ which never stops working; so adapting a healthy lifestyle can improve quality of life.

Dr. Ayesha Azam Khan