World Heart Day: women must make healthy choices

There has been a 300% rise in the incidence of heart disease from 1970 to 2000 according to World Health Organization. Edible oil manufacturer Saffola conducted the study – Saffolalife Study – and tied up with an accredited laboratory to assess the diagnostic parameters that contribute to cardio-vascular disease (CVD) risk among women.

“Focusing on early emotional development and helping children learn to regulate emotions effectively may be an important target for disease prevention and health promotion efforts”, Winning added.

78 per cent of women in Mumbai at risk of being affected by CVDs have reported increased belly fat, indicating that apple-shaped women are at risk of getting heart diseases. The major factors attributed to this are changes in lifestyle, lack of exercise, consumption of unhealthy food, increased stress level, smoking and irrational use of tobacco. The largest groups of women at risk of CVD are aged between 35 and 44.

“While effects of distress in early childhood on higher cardiometabolic risk in adulthood appeared to be somewhat mitigated if distress levels were lower by adulthood, they were not eradicated”. “This is an invite for heart diseases”, she remarked.

In recognition of World Heart Day, Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) is promoting good heart health by reminding residents of Qatar to make healthy choices to protect themselves and their loved ones from heart ailments. “Women are also less likely than men to have typical angina and have a higher false positive rate in the treadmill test. The symptoms women face are also different than those faced by men”, notes Dr. Aggarwal. It saw participation by 1,299 urban Indian females in the age group 30-45 years.Cardiovascular diseases in women are slowly gaining epidemic proportions due to high LDL cholesterol levels and BMI, according to Kunal Sarkar, vice-chairman and senior consultant cardiac surgeon at Medica Superspecialty Hospital. But those who had psychological distress only as children or only as adults also had a higher risk than those who did not go through periods of emotional turmoil.

That’s still a shocking prevalence in this young population, but it’s overshadowed by other types of heart disease, including inborn abnormalities of the coronary artery anatomy (33 per cent), inflammation of the heart muscle (20 per cent) and structural abnormalities of the heart muscle (13 per cent).

The study authors said the findings suggest greater attention should be paid to psychological distress in childhood. Scientists presume that silent, undetected disorders of the heart’s pumping rhythm account for numerous sudden deaths in patients with structurally normal hearts.