Love your heart

As you browse the shops bursting with shiny heart-shaped merchandise and red roses or Valentine’s Day, take a moment to stop and think about your real heart’s health. If love doesn’t stir you into action, there are some terrifying statistics that will definitely get you started on the road to a healthy heart.

According to the World Health Organization, cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death globally, claiming 17.1 million lives a year and about 30 per cent of deaths worldwide. In the UAE it accounts for 22 per cent of deaths and one in three Emiratis is at risk of cardiovascular disease, according to Dr Mukesh Nathani, a cardiologist at RAK Hospital in Ras Al Khaimah. This isn’t surprising given the high prevalence of conditions linked to CVD here in the UAE. Forty per cent of the population in the country is classified as obese and 18.9 per cent live with diabetes.

These are dramatic figures, but CVD refers to more than just a heart attack. The term ‘cardiovascular disease’ describes a group of conditions affecting the heart or blood vessels, says Dr Atul Aundhekar, chief medical director at iCARE Clinics, Dubai. The most common types in the UAE are coronary heart disease, cerebrovascular disease (stroke) and peripheral arterial disease.

Coronary heart disease occurs when the heart’s blood supply is interrupted by cholesterol-containing deposits, known as plaque, which build up in the arteries. A heart attack will occur if the heart’s blood supply is completely blocked. Cerebrovascular disease (stroke) happens when blood supply to the brain is restricted or stopped; peripheral arterial disease strikes when arterial plaque builds up in the blood vessels that carry blood to your legs and arms.

So what puts you at risk of CVD? Factors include a family history of the disease, lack of exercise, diabetes, smoking and hypertension (high blood pressure). Eight out of ten patients with diabetes will die of heart disease and smokers are twice as likely to have a heart attack than non-smokers, according to a report from the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress 2011. Having more than one of these risk factors puts people in greater danger.

Why even the young are at risk

But it’s not just overweight, middle-aged smokers who can fall victim to heart disease. It’s possible for people as young as 20 to suffer from a heart condition called cardiac arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat), says Dr Ahmad Gabroun, specialist cardiologist at Canadian Specialist Hospital in Dubai. He says this hard-to-detect condition is so widespread that research suggests every one of us will probably have suffered an attack of atrial fibrillation (the most common type of cardiac arrhythmia) at least once in our lives and will have never noticed. However, when a severe attack strikes, it can be fatal.

“Serious atrial fibrillation can lead to blood clot formation in the heart chamber,” says Dr Arun Goyal, Consultant Cardiac Surgeon at RAK Hospital. “These clots may eventually end up in the lungs, leading to pulmonary embolism [blockage of the lungs], or in the general circulation, where they pose a risk of blocking the arteries in the brain, which can cause a stroke.”