MATTERS Heart of the issue
FEBRUARY 16-22, 2012
HEALTH The Voice supplement Page 24 - 27
British Heart Foundation
“ The most important thing
that you can do to help strengthen your circulatory system is to maintain a healthy lifestyle. It’s all about putting your life into perspective, taking responsibility and looking after yourself.
”
“You only have one heart, which has to last your entire lifetime - so remember to look after it.”
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HEALTHMATTERS
BY BART CHAN
CPR (see the British Heart Foundation’s guide).
What is heart disease? Heart disease is a term which encompasses a number of specific ailments. One of the most common forms is coronary artery disease, occurring when arteries become hardened and narrowed by a build-up of plaque which restricts blood supply to the heart, a process called atherosclerosis. Plaques are a combination of fatty substances, including cholesterol and lipids. Another condition is Angina, a problem related to coronary disease, which happens when the heart muscles cannot get enough blood, causing a squeezing pain in the chest that can also be felt in the shoulders, arms, neck, jaw and back. There are two forms of angina: stable and unstable, the latter being a medical emergency. Other types of heart disease are: heart failure; aortic aneurysm and dissection; arrhythmias; and cardiomyopathy.
Why is there a need to act quickly? The risk of death or permanent damage can be decreased with timely treatment. Due to the heart’s vital function, delay can result in fatal consequences due to the body’s key organs being starved of oxygen.
What are the symptoms of heart attack? There are three major signs of oncoming cardiac arrest. Usually, discomfort in the centre of the chest occurs during a heart attack, which can come and go, involving a squeezing sensation. Tight, sharp pains in other areas of the upper body, such as the arms, back and neck, are indications. Shortness of breath also is a manifestation, and can happen before and during an attack. Other symptoms include: cold sweats; nausea; and light-headedness. What should a bystander do if they believe someone is experiencing cardiac arrest? The first action to take is call 999. Thereafter, if you have been trained or are familiar with first aid, perform CPR. If not, you can administer hands only
TOO ? STRESSED a Here are few ways ff to blow o steam
What are the risk factors of heart disease? The most serious risk factors are: high blood cholesterol; high blood pressure; diabetes; smoking; and obesity. Lifestyle choices may exacerbate or ameliorate risk, however, there are non-modifiable factors, which are: family genetics, age, and ethnicity. According to the British Heart Foundation, South
Asians living in the UK are almost twice as likely to die from coronary heart disease before the age of 75 compared to the rest of the UK population while people of African-Caribbean origin have the highest risk of developing high blood pressure out of all ethnic groups. What can I do to reduce the risk of heart disease? The most effective way of improving your chances against heart disease is by sustaining a wise and healthy lifestyle,
avoiding excesses and taking things in moderation. Diet and exercise are crucial. Maintaining a balanced, healthy diet is a great way to decrease the probability of heart problems. You can cut down on salt, saturated fats and alcohol, eat five portions of fruit and vegetable a day, oily fish once a week, and choose wholegrain foods and complex carbohydrates. Being active enables you to keep your heart healthy. It is widely recommended that you do thirty minutes moderate intensity exercise a day for five days a week. You don’t have to sweat profusely and feel the burn - walking and even taking the stairs count! One of the easiest things to do is avoid smoking, yet much harder to do when addicted. Smokers are seriously upping the odds of heart disease; they are almost twice as likely to suffer a heart attack than those who have never taken a puff.
7
FAQS
on heart disease
What are the implications of heart disease to the UK? Heart disease is a prolific killer. In 2009, 180,000 deaths resulted from cardiovascular disease in the UK. That’s one in three of all fatalities. Heart disease is one of the main causes of death in people under seventy-five. Also in 2009 twenty-eight percent of premature deaths in men resulted from the disease, and twenty percent in the female population. Overall, approximately, forty percent of all deaths in the UK are caused by heart disease. The country is also picking up an expensive bill. NHS statistics from 2006 found that the health service and UK economy faced a £30 billion combined cost from heart disease. The monetary cost to the healthcare system being £14.4 billion, productivity losses £8 billion, and the cost of informal care £8 billion. Oxford University estimated that in 2004, heart disease meant 69 million working days were lost.
YOGA AND MEDITATION Yoga is more than a fad activity Hollywood actors do to keep in shape and look good. Yoga is an ancient tradition derived from Vedic philosophy with proven physical and mental health benefits. The British Wheel of Yoga describes yoga as offering ‘a holistic approach to body, mind and spirit, which can provide us with the tools to cope with the challenges of daily life.’ And there are not many better ways to improve general health and
well-being than learning this multifaceted practice from a certified British Wheel of Yoga teacher. A true teacher won’t just make you become more flexible, they will help show you how to live within the present, knowing yourself, and therefore the world, better. Apart from the obvious advantages of gaining a more supple body, yoga enables the practice of meditation. And this is its ultimate aim: preparing the body to sit still and meditate. Meditation is impossible if the body is in discomfort, hence yoga
teaches you how to become more accustomed with your own body through breathing practice in conjunction with the various poses. For example, it is no good being able to touch your toes if you rush your breath. You don’t have to be a yogi master to meditate effectively. What is important is finding a comfortable sitting position where the back is straight and body even. From there you must tame the mind, releasing what has gone before and not worrying about what has to be done,
concentrating on the present, emptying your mind of thought. In Buddhism, meditation is a way to attain enlightenment, a process akin to pulling a boulder up a mountain, hard work yet possible. Whereas aiming to get there with an angry, emotional mind is as easy as trying to control the boulder rolling down the mountain. In the short-term yoga and meditation offer a way to dissolve tensions, however, if you practice well you’ll find it can become life changing.
HEALTHMATTERS
FEBRUARY 16-22, 2012 THE VOICE |25
AN EXPERT OPINION
Dr Adrian Banning, a leading Consultant Cardiologist based at John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, works in both interventional and general cardiology, and is responsible for emergency procedures. Also a pioneer in research, he introduced intravascular ultrasound to his laboratory and has a particular interest in the use of drug eluting stents. In 2010, Dr Banning was named on a list chosen by other top cardiologists asking them who they’d like to perform heart surgery on their loved ones.
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What is the most common surgical procedure against heart disease? The investigation we do most commonly is a coronary angiogram. This can be performed from the wrist or the groin and it allows us to visualise the heart arteries (the coronary arteries). When we can see these arteries we can decide what is the best treatment – either tablets, insertion of coronary stents, or bypass surgery. Which procedure is the most risky to carry out, and why? In the last two years the treatment of heart attack has been revolutionised in the UK. Instead of administering “clot buster” medication to dissolve the clot causing heart attack, we do an angiogram immediately. If we can see an artery blocked with clot we can open it with a balloon and then lace a stent to prevent it re-blocking. This is called primary angioplasty – the Duke of Edinburgh had one of these procedures recently. (You can see the process illustrated on this video: www.youtube. com/watch?v=CGwiJjiASEY) What would you say is the best way people can avoid heart disease? Smoking is the most dangerous thing that we can do for our long term heart health. Preventing passive smoking by preventing smoking in public plac-
Dr Adrian Banning es has been a big step forward. Unfortunately, many young people continue to smoke, particularly young girls. How can the government help reduce the cost heart disease imposes on the NHS? A lot of money has been spent in the last 10 years on heart disease treatments. We are now starting to see the impact of that with less heart attacks and more people surviving heart attacks and able to resume their lives. Why did you choose to become a cardiologist? Cardiology is one of the most exciting specialities in medicine. It spans everything from emergency treatment of heart attacks, to state of the art imaging which allows us to visualize the heart and its function, to amazing genetic medicine discoveries which have informed us why some patients inherit heart disease from their parents.
What skills are needed to be an outstanding cardiologist? Patience and stamina are quite important. You also need to be able to talk to people and be able to help them understand complex, sometimes scary problems. What aspect of being a cardiologist would you say is most stressful? We do an on-call rota for heart attacks treatment. In our centre in Oxford the average time from the ambulance arriving to getting the artery causing a heart attack open is 23 minutes. Being on call means you can be rung anytime day or night and the team have to be ready to respond. This is stressful but very rewarding. How do you keep your heart healthy? Eat sensibly (most of the time) and I run at weekends. Keeping your weight stable reduces the chance of developing diabetes and high blood pressure. Obviously I don’t smoke. How do you see the future of cardiology developing? In the last few years we have started implanting new heart valves from keyhole incisions in the groin. This technique- TAVI is hugely exciting and an example of how technology allows us to treat more and more people.
‘Don’t miss next month’s Health Matters focusing on prostate cancer. We talk to people affected by the illness, including 56 year-old body builder, Denton Wilson, who’s battled the cancer for 14 years. Also, we take a look at organ donation, and how demand is outstripping supply.’
BEING CREATIVE AND ACTIVE There are numerous ways of expressing creativity, and each of them can be a valid and valuable means to reducing stress. Many find writing, be it fictional or truthful, as a method of releasing stress. The act of writing can help rationalise experience, helping you gain perspective, or it can be a window of escape where imagination and mind wander freely, decompressing everyday stress. Also, writing can be used as a venting mechanism,
where you can get things that have been bothering you off your chest, instead of merely complaining to the closet person in earshot. Not holding back and getting down everything you feel on paper is a therapeutic exercise, plus reading back what you have written allows reflection. Creative energy can be channelled into visual art, such as painting. The use of colours, images and shapes help express emotion, thus relieving oft compressed tensions that have no other outlet.
By simply filling a blank canvas you can expunge stress that has no verbal foundation. Likewise, you can find liberation through activities such as making and listening to music, dance and sport. When done with others, such exercises become social, helping foster cooperative spirit in working towards a goal. Additionally, physical activity can aid stress reduction through the body releasing endorphins, which, according to anatomic pathologist, Melissa Conrad Stöppler writing on Medicine
Net, lead to ‘feelings of euphoria… With high endorphin levels, we feel less pain and fewer negative effects of stress.’ SEX Sex is definitely one of the more pleasurable ways of decreasing stress. As well as releasing endorphins, studies have shown intercourse to lower stress and reinforce good mood. This can be attributed to the positive cognitive consequences of sexual interaction. Also, sex can help lower blood pressure,
a risk factor of heart disease. An Arizona State University study once examined subjects’ blood pressure during stressful activities, such as public speaking and solving mathematical equations. Those who had recently had sex displayed lower baseline blood pressures and less of an increase of pressure during the activity. Furthermore, feeling less stressed can lead to more sex, hence it’s an enjoyable, stress reducing cycle. And if you’re not getting any, you can always book yourself into a health spa.
26| THE VOICE FEBRUARY 16-22, 2011
HEALTHMATTERS
British Heart Fondation
By cutting down on salt I can help protect my heart. Want to know more? Call us.