February is heart month – get screened
THE HEART Foundation of Jamaica (HFJ) is using this month to “remind the public of the importance of a healthy lifestyle; to be aware of the risk factors for heart disease; and to know your numbers”. This year’s theme is, ‘Prevent Heart Failure, Get Screened, Keep the Beat’.
It is interesting and amazing that the heart is the first organ to be formed and to function in the human embryo. It begins beating about 22 days after conception. During an average lifetime, the human heart will have pumped about one million barrels of blood, created enough energy to drive a truck to the moon and back, and enough energy to lift a battleship 4.26 metres (14 feet) out of the water.
Every day a healthy heart beats an average of 100,000 times, produces enough energy to power a truck for 32.2 Km (20 miles) of driving … and delivers about 7,570 litres (2,000 gallons) of blood through 96,560 kilometres (60,000 miles) of blood vessels to keep 75 trillion cells alive.
They say that your best chance of enjoying good health is to choose the right parents; however, as we age, things are going to deteriorate and go wrong. Your goal should be to try to prevent premature suffering and premature death.
Heart disease is the greatest threat to our health. However, there are things that we can do to help to keep our heart healthy; things like regular exercise, rest, a diet of whole foods, weight control, reducing stress, and good control of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) – hypertension, diabetes, and high cholesterol.
HEALTHY DIET
Our society has morphed into a place where we have very few people producing their own foods, and most people find it extremely difficult to afford a healthy diet. So, they use rice, flour, oil, and sugar because they are relatively cheap. People need less expensive and more accessible healthy choices.
Additionally, most of us must be transported to work, sit for hours, and then get transported back home or wherever we are going. We sit in traffic, sometimes for hours. When we get home, the day has left us drained. Housing is also a huge problem, but the lack of available and secure green spaces is just as huge a problem; however, it is not being addressed. People need safe, easily accessible, secure areas to walk, exercise, and play.
Sometimes I encounter fit-looking, thin, and hard-working people who turn up only because family members pressure them, or they need a physical examination for a job. Although they feel fine, sometimes their blood pressures are as high as 260/120 mm/Hg. Some also turn out to be diabetic or hyper-lipidaemic or have a combination of some or all of the above.
An indeterminate number of citizens are fit, but because they don’t get screened, they do not know that they are unhealthy. Additionally, some decline the treatment necessary for their health. I knew someone who was a very passionate road cyclist. He and his friends would cycle for an incredible number of kilometres, but he had a high LDL cholesterol. For many years, I literally begged him to take one statin at nights, but he always refused. It was only after he suffered a painful and scary heart attack [while riding], and needed emergency cardiac intervention, that he started taking the statin.
EXTREMELY DIFFICULT
It is extremely difficult to convince people to get screened, to take medication (if needed), and to do their lifestyle changes before a bad event or before organ damage. Many people become very sick simply because they won’t adhere to medical advice or instructions.
The Heart Foundation and the National Health Fund are doing fantastic work and saving hundreds of thousands of lives. However, the powers that be need to invest more into utilising social media, some of those radio spots reserved for government broadcast, signs on public transport, and billboards to encourage more screening, sticking to prescribed meds, and lifestyle adjustments.
Despite all our efforts, a little over onethird of Jamaicans (between 15 and 74 years old) are hypertensive, 40 per cent of them don’t know it, and of those that know it, about 65 per cent are not controlled. About 12 per cent of Jamaicans are diabetic, 40-50 per cent do not know it, and more than half are not properly controlled. Similarly, about 11.7 per cent of our citizens have a high LDL-cholesterol, many are unaware, and most are not controlled.
Healthcare is not just about healthcare. We must advocate for improved socioeconomic conditions. The new frontier for heart (and, by the way, brain health – the two go hand in hand), lies in more messages about screening and adherence – there is a lot of ignorance and many myths out there. We also need to facilitate healthy lifestyles with the financial and environmental ability to do so.
People are challenged by their genetics (family history), the environment inside their mother’s womb, the environment outside the womb, their socio-economic circumstances, stress, ghrelin, leptin, and apparently even by gut microbiomes. However, we must do screening, checking, taking medication (if needed), and support one another.
Why not form WhatsApp groups for family, relatives, friends, and neighbours with NCDs? Report how you are doing and encourage one another to go to the doctor or to the lab. Go to YouTube for exercise videos. Don’t ignore the NCDs, because they will not ignore you. We must never give up on ourselves.