Cardiologists promote healthy heart in Bengal

With childhood obesity on the rise along with the frequent occurrence of hypertension and diabetes, an increasing number of young adults in the city are becoming prone to coronary artery disease, which often leads to heart failure. 

The Cardiological Society of India (CSI), which has 25 centres spread across India, is promoting the need to maintain a healthy heart among youngsters by launching a campaign in schools of Bengal at the Higher Secondary level. 

“There is a strong need to de-addict oneself from habits like smoking and drinking, says the World Heart Federation. Also, an individual must go for some form of exercise at least thrice in a week. If one cannot exercise, at least efforts should be made to climb the stairs of the office rather than taking the lift or getting up and stretching oneself during a sedentary work schedule”, Dr Debabrata Roy, Secretary of the CSI (Bengal) told Millennium Post.

Another preventive measure is stopping the consumption of fast food, says Dr Roy. “Pizzas, burgers and potato chips are damaging for all lifestyle diseases. Also, surveys have revealed that fast food contains high amount of salt and sugar than is unhealthy for the human body”, he says. The companies also target children and their parents through advertisements and they often bite the bait, adds Dr Roy. Rising pollution levels in the metros is also detrimental to lifestyle diseases. 

CSI is now starting a campaign in about 12,000 schools of Bengal and about 80,000 students enrolled in them with the objective of creating “healthy heart homes”. “These youngsters can not only imbibe healthy habits at a young age but also advise their parents to quit bad habits that can lead to heart ailments”, says Dr Roy.

The campaign will be jointly run by NGOs, the Government of Bengal and the CSI. The CSI will provide charts, booklets and CDs which talk about the 10 commandments that lead to a healthy heart. 

The CSI also runs free heart camps in the city where free ECG check-ups are provided every now and then to those who want to test their basic heart function. On September 28, which is World Heart Day, CSI released the booklet in 11 languages, providing guidelines for creating heart healthy homes.