World Heart Day: Stay away from refined sugar, bakery products, red meat to keep your heart healthy, say doctors

Manav Mander

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, September 28

‘Sugar is the new smoking’ and on World Heart Day, which is observed every year on September 29, doctors advocate against the use of refined sugar to keep the heart healthy as it leads to obesity, diabetes and bad cholesterol.

“Smoking is considered bad but sugar is equally bad as it leads to hypertension, insulin resistance, obesity, heart disease and fatty liver. To keep the heart healthy, one should stay away from refined carbohydrates, bakery products and red meat. One should include more fruits and vegetables in the diet and walking for 30 to 40 minutes should also be included in daily routine,” said Dr Bishav Mohan, medical superintendent, Hero Heart DMC Hospital.

He said excessive gymming and consuming protein shake afterwards were not proving good for health and on the other hand, yoga had given positive results.

Dr Mohan said Indians were deficient in protein and thus, consumption of almonds, walnuts, soya bean, cottage cheese and egg which was cost effective, should be increased.

Dr Arvind M Das, director of cardiology at Max Hospital, said a witnessed collapse should immediately trigger a resuscitation response. It involves firstly checking the pulse of the patient and calling him out to check his responsiveness. The fall could be due to low blood pressure or low sugar.

“However, if your instincts tell you that this could be a cardiac arrest, then an immediate response is mandatory. Remember you have just five minutes — any delay would lead to irreversible brain damage. Bystander CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) is important when one is dealing with a cardiac arrest patient. Now that there is less emphasis on mouth-to-mouth respiration, stand-alone chest compression is easy to do and learn with similar results. The next step is to call for help — for an ambulance, so that paramedical personnel arrive at the site to take over. Even if it means continuing compressions for 30 minutes, one should continue to do that,” he said.

Pay attention

• Keep a check: Get your blood pressure (BP), sugar and cholesterol levels checked regularly. BP is a silent killer and has no obvious symptoms to indicate that something is wrong.
• Golden hour: Many people take heart attack as gastroenteritis problem. If one faces any such issue or pain, the best thing to do is go to a nearby hospital and get an ECG done. First one hour is known as golden hour and should be used by getting an ECG done from a nearby hospital.
• Healthy food: Include green leafy vegetables, berries, fish, almonds, walnuts and beans in your diet for a healthy heart.

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