STAY FIT, LIVE LONGER

In today’s era the number of families with heart disease like hypertension, dyslipedimia are increasing at a very fast pace.

We Asians are genetically prone to develop heart diseases and along with that sedentary life style, bad good habits, stress etc, add to the problem. The time has come to wake up and do something to prevent the future generations from this. We need to something very drastic to make this happen. Here are the tips to prevent heart diseases.

Exercise:

It is said that “Walk your way to health”.

Walking is a very good and effective exercise and can be done by any body and at age. This burns calories. Try to do this at least 6 days in a week and about 150 minutes in a week. . Try to avoid stairs at your work place of home for at least couple of floors

Apart from walking sports, swimming, regular work ups etc, are good. In presence of any disease this should be done after consulting your doctor.

The kids must be encouraged to play out door sports which is rapidly declining due to lack of space and availability of video games, internet etc, which makes them seat for hours together with munching and avoiding physical activity.

Diet:

This also play a very vital role in prevention of heart disease. We all are addicted to junk good and cold drinks. Please avoid them as then contain only empty calories and are very poor in nutrition.

Our oil consumption is very high. Ideally one should consume only about 10 kg oil per year. Means a couple needs one tin of 20kg/year, to simply this. Cut the oil intake and try to eat baked good and cook in a vessel which needs less oil for cooking. This potato chips, popcorns, cold drinks contain very high calorie and very dangerous and must be avoided.

One should have plenty of fruits and salads in diet to have good nutrition and have aliments which can help to fight against heart disease. Plan your diet well and avoid taking fried snacks in between and skipping meals. You must have proper eating schedule how ever busy you may be. Late night meals and partying must be avoided. The good taken very can not be digested properly can lead to host of problems.

Addiction:

In the name of beating stress our young generation is getting addicted to smoking, tobacco chewing and alcohol. All of this leads to increase cholesterol in body and lead to more development of fat deposition in the arteries and invite heart disease at a very young age. The age at which a person is having heart disease is falling very fast and we are seeing more and more deaths due to this also.

This must be stopped by any means. Please do not blame stress for this.

Stress:

Stress is again a very important factor in development of heart disease. Nuclear families, long job hours, cut throat competition, rising living cost. Are main reasons for development of stress.

Stress leads to hypertension and bad habits. This in turn leads to development of heart diseases. One needs to socialize and keep ambitions under control. The employers should ensure good peaceful work environment and healthy atmosphere at work. Regular stress reliving techniques like Yoga, meditataion etc, can definitely help.

Obesity:

With time, the waist size is increasing and obesity has really become a problem at any age. Even childhood obesity is a big concern. Lack of physical activity and ignorance of parents about their food had made this child hood obesity a very big problem.

At any age physical activity must be encouraged along with proper diet planning.

Health Check Ups:

After certain age normally 40 years of age, regular health check ups are must. This age could be lower in case presence of diseases in family.

Prevention is always better then cure, so any aliment which can be detected in time can be effectively taken care of and onset of disease can be prevented.

Even after disease has developed regular check ups prevents complication and improve quality of life. Family members who have one of there relative having any disease like diabetes, hypertension and heart disease etc.needs to be extra careful.

Putting all of above together will help one to live a longer and healthy life and enjoy the gift of god.

Dr.Pragnesh M.Vachharajani