HEART disease remains one of the country’s leading killers. This according to the Heart and Stroke Foundation of South Africa, with about 130 South Africans suffering a heart attack on a daily basis.
In support of Heart Month, which aims to raise awareness on heart disease and treatment, the Northglen News caught up with a leading cardiology specialist at Ethekwini Hospital and Heart Centre, Shiraz Gafoor, to learn more about the body’s most essential muscle – the heart.
According to Gafoor, Durbanites are prone to suffer from coronary artery disease (CAD), a common form of heart disease caused by a build-up of cholesterol or calcium, known as plaque, on the walls of the arteries.
“The plaque blocks off the blood flow to the heart, which could lead to a chronic stable angina or acute coronary syndrome, such as heart attacks,” he said.
There are several risk factors that could make a person more susceptible to heart disease.
These include, smoking, diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol and obesity.
Gafoor added that Indian men have a genetic predisposition to develop heart disease. “Even Indian men as young as 40 can develop heart disease,” he said.
The most important message to take away from this awareness initiative, said Gafoor, was that in most cases heart disease is preventable.
“By leading an active lifestyle, eating a healthy and balanced diet and regularly monitoring your sugar and blood pressure levels, you can avoid heart disease. It is also important to de-stress as stress has also become an influencing factor,” he said.
“We are seeing younger and younger people suffering from heart attacks and other cardiac problems, mainly due to their increasingly stressful lifestyles, poor diet, smoking and inactive lifestyles,” he added.
Definitions:
– Acute coronary syndrome is a term used for any condition brought on by sudden, reduced blood flow to the heart.
– Stable angina is chest pain or discomfort that most often occurs with activity or emotional stress. Angina is due to poor blood flow through the blood vessels in the heart.
– Heart failure is a condition in which the heart fails to pump adequate amounts of blood to the tissues, resulting in accumulation of blood returning to the heart from the veins and often accompanied by distension of the ventricles, edema, and shortness of breath.
– Heart disease generally refers to conditions that involve narrowed or blocked blood vessels, which can lead to a heart attack, chest pain (angina) or stroke. Other heart conditions, such as those that affect your heart’s muscle, valves or rhythm, also are considered forms of heart disease.
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