World Heart Day is celebrated every year on the 29th of September since 1999. This day is celebrated to raise awareness about cardiovascular diseases among people about the importance of heart health and prevention of cardiovascular diseases.
Cardiovascular diseases are found to be the world’s number one killer globally, resulting in 18.6 million deaths a year.
Theme
World heart day is celebrated every year with a particular and unique theme. This year on World Heart Day, the theme is USE HEART TO CONNECT. This theme gives an idea to find different and innovative ways to connect people to cardiovascular diseases and heart health.
History
World heart day is celebrated since 1999. This day was an initiative by the World Heart Federation in collaboration with the World Health Organisation (WHO). Antoni Bayés de Luna, the preside t of the World Heart Federation coined this idea to celebrate World Heart Day as an annual event globally. This day is observed to spread awareness about cardiovascular diseases (CVD), including heart disease and stroke.
World Heart Day is celebrated every year in more than 90 countries of the world.
In this regard, World heart day is a very important event because this day is a reminder to the people to focus on their problems related to heart and they should adopt healthy practices, including their prevention and their global impact
that can help in maintaining a strong heart.
We have been noticing many unnatural deaths of young and middle-aged persons in the recent past. We have to take this issue as a serious concern and this could be prevented by taking appropriate steps.
With the start of the Covid pandemic, our lifestyle has become more like a prisoner at home, this unhealthy lifestyle of staying indoors has caused many cardiovascular problems such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol levels, diabetes, smoking, obesity, lack of outdoor exercise and mental stress, etc. These problems lead to severe heart problems even at an early age.
On world heart day many events are carried out by governmental and non-governmental organizations, and NGOs to promote healthy hearts. They arrange science fairs, walks and runs, health checks, fitness sessions, public talks, shows, and exhibitions
awareness programs, seminars, conferences on different platforms.
What is Heart Disease? Heart disease is a term used for a variety of conditions that affect the ability of the heart to function properly. The most common heart problem is coronary artery disease. Heart problems lead to heart attacks and heart failure when they are not taken care of.
Signs and Symptoms of Heart Disease
The following are some conditions, which lead to heart diseases. These signs and symptoms should not be taken easy or neglected by the patient. These symptoms include;
• Chest pain
• Shortness of breath
• Fainting
Factors involved in the cause of cardiovascular diseases
• Smoking
• Lack of exercise
• Hypertension (high blood pressure)
• Uncontrolled diabetes mellitus
• Hyperuricaemia (high serum uric acid level)
Tips to improve your heart’s health
a) Exercise
Exercise improves your overall health. It keeps you active and ideally pushes up your heart rate to 80%. Exercises like cycling, swimming, badminton, running are good to keep your heart healthy.
b) Diet
The most important thing to take care of is the diet you are taking. Green vegetables, fresh fruits, and a suitable amount of meat and nuts should be a part of your food. These organic foods are good for your heart’s health and they can also keep you fit and active. You should cut down on fats in your diet. Saturated fats are present in meat and full-fat dairy products and this increases the bad cholesterol and raises the risk of heart diseases. Trans fats should also be excluded from our diet because it not only increases bad cholesterol but it also happens to lower down good cholesterol.
C) Avoid Smoking
Smoking is injurious to your life. It damages your lungs and can lead to coronary heart disease.
D) Regular checkup
It is important to have your cholesterol, blood pressure, and heart checked regularly.
It will give you a complete picture of your heart’s health and the precautions you should take to avoid any severities. It’s really important to keep a track of your blood pressure. If your blood pressure remains high it is an alarming sign because high blood pressure can damage walks of the arteries and it makes it difficult for the heart to get oxygen.
Hence, it is important to look after our hearts by eating a healthy diet, saying no to tobacco, and getting plenty of exercises.
E)Proper sleep
Always get 7-9 hours of sleep at night. Getting proper sleep is very important for your health as well as for your heart. Sleep keeps us relax and increases immunity. Improper sleeping patterns or disturbed sleep is also a cause of cardiovascular problems.
F)Avoid taking the stress
Stress is the main cause of cardiovascular diseases. When we should ask stress our blood pressure increases automatically, we tend to overeat, be sleepless, becomes unhappy, and sedentary. All these factors cause bad effects on our hearts. Don’t take the stress and enjoy life because it can help you to improve the health of your heart.
COVID-19 and heart diseases
COVID has heightened the risk of heart diseases like heart failure. According to ongoing research,
COVID can cause arrhythmia, acute coronary syndrome, myocardial injury, venous thromboembolism. Covid is also found to be a significant risk factor for myocarditis or the inflammation of the heart muscle (myocardium).
The occurrence of COVID is linked with the worsened outcomes and an increased risk of death.
World Heart Day is a very important day and we all should come together in the battle against cardiovascular disease and lower the worldwide disease burden. We would recommend you all to take some time to do a bit of research about heart conditions and risk factors. This will help you to understand your heart well and the ways to keep it healthy and moving in the long run.
This is written by Syeda Sundeela Fayyaz
Masters in microbiology
