At a webinar on addressing premature atherosclerotic heart disease, doctors raised the need to understand the risk factors and adopt lifestyle modifications for a healthy heart.
As a part of The Hindu Wellness series, the webinar on “How do we address premature atherosclerotic heart disease in ourselves” was held on Thursday. It was presented by Kauvery Hospital.
Manoj Sivaramakrishnan, senior consultant, Interventional Cardiologist, Kauvery Hospital, Chennai, spoke on atherosclerotic cardio-vascular disease (ASCVD) risk, challenges and future directions.
“Atherosclerosis is a process that starts very young by eight or nine years of age and slowly builds up. Over a period of time, by the time the patient is 70 to 75, the vessel gets stiffer and narrowed. That is the natural process. When atherosclerosis occurs much earlier than that by the 40s and 50s, we call it the disease process. The World Health Organisation states that cardiovascular disease is the number one killer disease,” he said. He explained the process of how cholesterol develops in the blood vessel, slowly builds up over a period of time, encroaches on the vessel space, and finally narrows the vessel.
Compared to the Japanese, Chinese and Americans, Indians have a multi-fold increase in the incidence of heart disease, especially coronary heart disease, he said. “What is more alarming is that 40% of the patients are below 45 years of age,” said Dr. Sivaramakrishnan.
Less than 10% of Indians are aware that high cholesterol is a risk factor, and 80% of Indians have high cholesterol and are undiagnosed and untreated, he said.
Lifestyle modification is the cornerstone and fundamental throughout the life of the individual. For decreasing ASCVD risk, avoid smoking, maintain blood pressure less than 130/80 mmHg, control cholesterol, diet, maximise exercise, minimise fat, monitor and control glucose, quit bad habits and initiate good habits. “This is the vaccine for a healthy heart,” Dr. Sivaramakrishnan said.
V. Mahadevan, cardio diabetologist, senior interventional cardiologist, Kauvery Hospital, Chennai, elaborated on the stages of development of atherosclerosis.
Age, gender, genetic factors, race and ethnicity are non-modifiable risk factors, he said. “Prevent all modifiable factors by giving importance to control of diabetes, hypertension and cholesterol levels, and encourage physical activity… Assess the risk factors and tackle them. If not, the progression of atherosclerosis is accelerated,” he said.
He said children should be encouraged to adopt a healthy lifestyle, good physical activity, cut down high fat and high cholesterol, and to encourage a high fibre diet.
R. Punithakumar, consultant, Cardiothoracic Surgeon, Kauvery Hospital Heartcity, Tiruchi, outlined the surgical options such as Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting (CABG). “The bypass restores blood flow to ischemic myocardium which in turn restores function, viability and relieves anginal symptoms,” he said. He explained how totally endoscopic CABG and robotic CABG worked.
The video for the webinar is: https://bit.ly/3PHkzjF
