Heart Health : Why it Matters

World Heart Day is being celebrated in Nepal and around the world today to raise awareness and education among the global population. World Heart Day serves as a motivating factor for people to concentrate on their health and make some crucial lifestyle changes to keep themselves healthy.

“Our lifestyle has drastically changed in a few decades, whereas our evolutionary biology takes thousands of years to evolve. In the past, food was not readily available at all times, humans ate oily and sugary food when they had the opportunity to do so with the motive of storing energy in their body for the times of food scarcity. Now the same foods high in sugar and fats are linked with diseases related to the heart,” says Health expert, Dr. Rajendra Bhadra.

Tobacco use and consumption of alcohol are harmful habits that increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. Harmful habits cause high blood pressure, high blood glucose, raised blood lipids, overweight and obesity in people. WHO terms these harmful habits as “intermediate risk factors” that increase the risk of heart attack, stroke, heart failure and other complications.

Some of the Symptoms for heart attack are pain or discomfort in the centre of the chest, arms, the left shoulder, elbows, jaw or back. Likewise, difficulty in breathing or shortness of breath; nausea or vomiting; light-headedness or faintness; a cold sweat; and turning pale are also among the symptoms of heart attack .

A person may experience numbness of the face, arm, or leg, especially on one side of the body, confusion, difficulty speaking or understanding speech, difficulty seeing with one or both eyes, difficulty walking, dizziness and/or loss of balance or coordination, severe headache before a stroke.

However, much can be done to prevent cardiovascular diseases. WHO recommends these things we must start doing today to keep our heart healthy -

Eat healthy

Get active

Stay at a healthy weight

Quit smoking and stay away from secondhand smoke

Control your cholesterol and blood pressure

Drink alcohol only in moderation

Manage stress

Currently the,  "Global action plan for the prevention and control of non communicable diseases" made my WHO member states, aims to reduce the number of premature deaths from non communicable diseases by 25% by 2025. This project will focus on the prevention and control of heart diseases in the following three years to come. Ensuring access to drug therapy and counselling to prevent heart attacks and strokes is also one of the many goals WHO member states will try to achieve in the following three years.