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HowToPreventHeartDisease.com |
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Why And How You Should Care For Your Heart? World Health Organization (WHO) ranks cardiovascular disease as the top cause of death globally. Cardiovascular diseases refer to all diseases of the heart and circulation, including coronary heart disease, heart failure, congenital heart disease and stroke. They were responsible for about 17.3 million deaths in 2008 or 30 percent of all global deaths. The number of deaths is expected to reach 23.3 million by 2030. Nearly 160,000 people in the United Kingdom (UK) died from cardiovascular disease in 2011 and 74,000 of these deaths were caused by coronary heart disease, the single biggest killer in UK. In Singapore, coronary heart disease was the third leading cause of death (16.1 percent) and third leading cause of hospitalization (3.6 percent) in 2012. Coronary heart disease and stroke might be caused by the same problem known as atherosclerosis, which is a condition that develops when fatty material (atheroma) builds up in the walls of the arteries. The buildup narrows the arteries making the blood more difficult to flow through. If a blood clot forms, it could prevent the blood flow and trigger a heart attack or stroke. People, who have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, family history of heart disease, and those who are inactive, overweight or obese, are at a higher risk of developing cardiovascular disease.
Most people are not paying too much attention to what they eat, and they also do not exercise regularly. But once they have diagnosed with heart disease or stroke, they simply have to change their lifestyle. In Singapore, many patients with coronary heart disease continue to receive cares from polyclinics after being discharged from the hospital. These patients get well-rounded care with the assistance of a multidisciplinary team comprising family physicians, care managers, dietitians, pharmacists, psychologists and medical social workers. Polyclinics aim to keep these patients well and stable to minimize their visits to hospital emergency departments for heart attack. For patients who have survived a life-threatening event, they are often motivated to alter their lifestyle so that they can maintain their quality of life despite having heart disease. A customized diet plans could be drawn up for each patient, with the help of dietitians, according to their medical conditions that might include diabetes, hypertensions and high cholesterol. The diet is usually rich in vegetables, fruit and whole grains and is low in salt, fat and oil. Such diet generally helps lower one’s blood pressure and cholesterol levels and it supports weight loss efforts too. Sometimes, counseling sessions are conducted together with care managers and nurses who manage chronic diseases. Meanwhile, patients with coronary heart disease should engage in at least 30 minutes of moderate physical activity 4 or 5 times a week, coupled with an increase in daily activities like climbing stairs instead of taking the lift. The exercise can, however, be accumulated in 10- and 15-minute bouts. For example, one can perform three 10-minute or two 15-minute sessions instead of one 30-minute session. It is also important for patients to maintain a healthy weight that is determined by BMI (body mass index) of between 18.5 and 22.9. Patients who are overweight should aim to lose weight gradually, say at 0.5 kilo per week. Patients should stop smoking if they are smokers and should limit their alcohol intake as well. Managing all the risk factors for coronary heart disease is extremely paramount. For instance, one should keep a healthy blood pressure reading of less than 130/80 mmHg and a low-density lipoprotein cholesterol level of less than 2 mmol/l. If he or she is a diabetic, then it is essential to have a hemoglobin A1c reading, which gives a snapshot of the overall glucose control over the past 2 to 3 months, of between 6.5 and 7 percent. To attain all these targets, patients should take their medications regularly and attend their follow-up medical appointments as scheduled.
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