The news of the recent heart surgery performed on Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi and sudden death of one my dear friends at the age of 47 due to heart attack( I received the news a few hours ago) prompted me to write this piece to highlight the fact that heart disease rates among Indians are very high which tends to be severe,making it hard to treat with bypass surgery.Even when successfully carried out,such procedures often serve only as temporary fixes.This means that,despite surgeries,the blockages often return with a vengeance,leading to premature death.Many cases are simply inoperable.However,heart disease is highly preventable.
Space constraints prevent touching in detail on all aspects of preventive strategies.Therefore,the role of physical activity,the most important component of prevention, will be addressed briefly.Regular exercises combined with healthy diet can reduce one's risk of coronary heart disease by 70%. A physical fitness program mainly consists of cardiovascular exercises,also called aerobic exercises.This can include walking,running,swimming,biking,tennis and other sports.There are three aspects of aerobic exercise,often abbreviated by the acronym FIT,which stands for frequency ( how often),intensity ( how vigorously) and time ( how long).The first priority to focus on is frequency.Compared with either the intensity of exercise or the amount of time,the consistency with which one stays physically active daily or almost daily,week in and week out,is the most important factor in reducing one's risk of heart disease.One should be physically active at least five and preferably seven days a week. The second part of the equation is intensity.How vigorous should one's cardiovascular activities be?In order to prevent heart disease,all one needs to do is to engage in moderately vigorous activity.Overall,moderately vigorous activity should make one feel the way one does when one walks briskly for thirty minutes.One should be breathing hard through one's nose,but one should not feel a great urge to have to breath through one's mouth. The third important dimension of an effective cardiovascular activity program is deciding how long one should exercise.The 2006 US Government Dietary Guidelines recommend 30 to 90 minutes of exercise per day,depending upon one's weight and age.Note that this time does not include the warm-up and cool-down period.One should start out any exercise by warming up for at least 5 minutes. Do follow your physician's advice on physical activity.This is particularly important for men over 40 and women over 50,especially if they have been sedentary. KJD _______________________________________________ assam mailing list [email protected] http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org
