Q What are the five thumb rules for a layman
to take care of his heart?
A. 1. Diet – Less of carbohydrate, more of protein, less oil.
2. Exercise – half an hour’s walk, at least
five days a week. Avoid lifts and avoid sitting for a long time.
3. Quit smoking
4. Control weight
5. Control blood pressure and sugar.
Q Is eating non-veg food
(fish) good for the heart?
A. No
Q. It’s still a grave shock
to hear that some apparently healthy person get a cardiac arrest. How do we
understand it in perspective?
A. This is
called silent attack. That is why, we recommend everyone past the age of 30 to undergo
routine health check-ups.
Q Are
heart diseases hereditary?
A. Yes
Q What are the ways in which the heart is
stressed? What practices do you suggest to de-stress?
A. Change your attitude
towards life. Do not look for perfection in everything in life.
Q Is walking better than jogging or is more
intensive exercise required to keep a healthy heart?
A. Walking is
better than jogging since jogging leads to early fatigue and injury to joints.
Q You have done so much for the poor and
needy. What has inspired you to do so?
A. Mother Theresa, who was my patient.
Q Can people with low blood pressure suffer
heart diseases?
A. Extremely
rare.
Q Does cholesterol accumulate right from an early
age (I’m currently only 22) or do you have to worry about it only after you are
above 30 years of age?
A. Cholesterol accumulates
from childhood.
Q How do irregular eating
habits affect the heart?
A. You tend to
eat junk food when the habits are irregular and your body’s enzyme releases for
digestion gets confused.
Q Can a healthy person without a medical
history have a heart attack due to stress?
A. Extremely rare
Q How can I control cholesterol content
without using medicines?
A. Control diet,
walk and eat walnut.
Q Can yoga prevent heart ailments?
A. Yoga helps
Q, which is the best and
worst food for the heart?
A. Best food is
fruits, worst are oils.
Q If a person has undergone angioplasty, what
are the chances of the stent getting displaced?
A. Stent doesn’t
get displaced. It can get blocked. You could prevent it by controlling sugar,
cholesterol and taking medication to prevent clots.
Q Do negative emotions like depression or
anger always cause heart disease?
A. Not always.
On the other hand, positive emotions help recovery of the heart.
Q I have read about music therapy for the
heart and the mind. What is your opinion on this?
A. Guess, it
helps.
Q Which oil is better – gingili, groundnut,
sunflower, saffola, olive?
A. All oils are
bad. The so-called best oil company has the largest marketing budget.
Q What is the routine check-up one should go
through? Is there any specific test?
A. Routine blood
test to ensure sugar, cholesterol is ok. Check BP, Treadmill test after an echo.
Q How different was it in treating Noor
Fatima, the little kid from Pakistan?
A. It was
extremely difficult because of the media attention. As far as the medical
treatment is concerned, she was like any other child with a complex heart
problem.
Q What are the first aid
steps to be taken on a heart attack ?
A. Help the person into a
sleeping position, put an Aspirin tablet under the tongue with a Sorbitrate
tablet if available, and rush him to coronary care
unit since the maximum casualty takes place within the first hour.
Q How do you differentiate between pain
caused by a heart attack and that cause due to gastric trouble
?
A. Extremely
difficult without ECG.
Q Can drinking less water
lead to heart problems ?
A. No. However,
drinking plenty of water in normal people helps preserve good health.
Q Is it true that diabetic women seem to have
3 to 7 times greater risk of developing heart diseases
than non-diabetic women? Is it the same with high BP patients as well ?
A. Women are protected by
the hormones till the age of 45. After that, their risk increases like men and
in general, the result of treatment on heart patients who are women is slightly
poorer than men.
Q What are some of the precautions during
pregnancy to avoid heart problems in the new born ?
A. German
measles, which causes congenital abnormalities in the babies. No smoking.
Q What is the main cause of a steep increase
in heart problems amongst youngsters? I see people of about 30-40 years of age
having heart attacks and serious heart problems.
A. Increased awareness has
increased incidents. Also, sedentary lifestyles, smoking, junk food, lack of
exercise in a country where people are genetically three times more vulnerable
for heart attacks than Europeans and Americans.
Q What is the right time to
check the BP in any person?
A. Past the age
of 30 and earlier, if you have symptoms.
Q Is it possible for a person for a person to
have BP outside the normal range of 120/80 and yet to be perfectly healthy ?
A. Yes
Q Are there any symptoms for heart problems,
which we need to be aware of ?
A. Shortness of breath on
exertion, and chest pain.
Q If a person has had a heart attack, how
frequently is regular heart check-up recommend?
A. Once in 6 months.
Q Marriages within close relatives can lead
to heart problems for the child. Is it true?
A. Yes, co-sanguinity leads
to congenital abnormalities and you may not have a software engineer as a
child.
Q Many of us have an irregular daily routine
and many a time we have to stay in office till late nights. Does this affect
our heart? What precautions would you recommend?
A. When you are
young, nature protects you against all these irregularities. However, as you
grow older, respect the biological clock.
Q How can
we find out about blockage of arteries, beforehand?
A. Routine cardiac
evaluation by blood test, ECGs, TMTs, Stress Thallium Scan, Cardiac CT Scan for
Calcium score.
Q Does a recurring pain in
the left arm signify any heart related ailment?
A. Usually, you
get chest discomfort or shortness of breath, months or years before the heart
attack. So, when in doubt, go for a heart check-up, which should not take more
than a couple of hours.
Q Will taking
anti-hypertensive drugs cause some other complications (short/long term) ?
A. Yes, most
drugs have some side effects. However, modern anti-hypertensive drugs are
extremely safe.
Q Will consuming more
coffee/tea lead to heart attacks?
A. No
Q What are the chances of
lean people developing heart complications? Are they at less risk?
A. Obese people
are at a higher risk. Lean people also develop heart attacks, but primarily
because of genetic predisposition.
Q Is it true that after open-heart surgery,
patients lose memory-recall to some extent?
A. No. Especially after
bypass grafting on a beating heart, incidence of neurological problems have
come down significantly.
Q Are
Asthma patients more prone to heart disease?
A. No
Q How would you define junk
food?
A. Fried food
like Kentucky,
McDonalds, Samosas, and even Masala Dosas.
Q You mentioned that Indians are three times
more vulnerable. What is the reason for this, as Europeans and Americans also
eat a lot of junk food ?
A. Every race is
vulnerable to some disease and unfortunately Indians are vulnerable for the
most expensive disease.
Q Does consuming bananas
help reduce hypertension?
A. No
Q Is there any cure for chronic
palpitations?
A. The patient should be
investigated and if there is a cause for palpitation like an electrical
abnormality of the heart, this can be rectified by a procedure called
radio-frequency-ablation.
Q How would you rate the
health facilities currently available in India?
A. There are institutions,
which are as good or even better than the one in the US and Europe.
However, they are exceptions. In general, the qualities of health-care
available to the masses are poor.
Q If there is a small hole in the heart, what
are the possible ways of curing it? Is operation the only solution?
A. Small holes
in children less than 6 months of age usually closes. But the decision not to
operate should be taken by the specialists who are experts in treating children
with heart problems.
Q Are
emotions really controlled by heart?
A. No. The heart is just a
slave of the brain and it is the brain, which controls the emotions.
Q If a person does not do any physical
exercise, he is bound to have shortness of breath on exertion; say climbing
stairs. Is this an indication of heart disease?
A. No. But if
one has difficulty in breathing on mild exertion, it is better to go for a
heart check-up.
Q Can a person help himself during a heart attack?
A. Yes. Lie down comfortably
and put an aspirin tablet of any description under the tongue and ask someone
to take you to the nearest coronary-care-unit without any delay and do not wait
for the ambulance since most of the time, the ambulance does not turn up.
Q Do, in any way, low white-blood-cells and
low hemoglobin-count lead to heart problems?
A. No. But it is
ideal to have normal hemoglobin level to increase your exercise capacity.
Q Sometimes, due to the hectic schedule, we
are not able to exercise. So, does walking while doing daily chores at home or
climbing the stairs in the house, work as a substitute for exercise?
A. Certainly. Avoid sitting
continuously for more than half an hour and even the act of getting out of the
chair and going to another chair and sitting helps a lot.
Q Is there a relation between heart problems
and blood sugar?
A. Yes. A strong
relationship is there since diabetics are more vulnerable to heart attacks than
non-diabetics.
Q Do bypass surgeries
reduce the risk of future heart attacks ?
A. It significantly reduces
the risk of heart attack.
Q What are the things one
needs to take care of after a heart operation?
A. Diet,
exercise, drugs on time. Control Cholesterol, BP and weight.
Q Are people working
on night shifts more vulnerable to heart disease when compared to day shift
workers?
A. No.
Q Can you brief us about
angina attack? How major it is?
A. Angina is the
pain, which comes on exertion and goes away with rest and medication. One has
to be investigated in detail to plan treatment.
Q What are the modern
anti-hypertensive drugs?
A. There are hundreds of
drugs and your doctor will chose the right combination for your problem. But my
suggestion is to avoid the drugs and go for natural ways of controlling blood
pressure by walk, diet to reduce weight and changing attitudes towards
lifestyle.
Q Does dispirin or similar headache pills
increase the risk of heart attacks?
A. No
Q If there is about 85
percent blockage in the arteries, can the person be
treated without surgery? If not, what other remedies and the power of your
heart muscles
A. It depends on
collateral or natural bypass, the quality of other arteries and the power of
your heart muscles. It’s impossible to give an opinion without seeing the
angiography film.
Q There is a feeling that bypass is
unnecessarily being performed in some cases. When is bypass really needed?
A. When you have
blockages affecting major arteries, bypass is the best option. I am sure,
conscientious doctors will not perform an operation when it is not required.
Q Is it true that
mechanical valves can fail any moment?
A. No. If you
take medication to prevent clot formation and maintain the INR at accepted
levels, the valve cannot get blocked. However, like any mechanical gadget, it
can fail and fortunately, such incidences are extremely low.
Q Can you brief me on pulmonary stenosys problems?
What are the complications involved and what care needs to be taken?
A. In this condition, the
pulmonary valve is narrower at birth and putting a balloon across the valve and
dilating it can easily correct it.
Q Why is it the rate of heart attacks more in
men than in women?
A Nature
protects women till the age of 45.
Q How can
one keep the heart in a good condition?
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