| Do you know your risk factors?
(from elmundo.es) |
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Madrid – Did you know that cardiovascular diseases are the cause 17.5 million deaths a year? If the answer is no, probably you haven’t calculated that the cited figure sums 30% of global human life losses and neither that to continue on this road, by 2015 these pathologies would take nothing less than 20 million lives a year, as the World Health Organization (WHO) states. This is way, the Heart World Federation wishes to take advantage of the Heart Day to convey the message that modifying some costumes we can fortify our health and prevent risks.
Cardiovascular diseases cause more than one death every two seconds in the world, which, according to WHO, is the same of all the deaths caused by AIDS, Tb, malaria, diabetes, all kinds of cancer and chronic lung diseases all together.
Under the motto of ‘Do you know your cardiovascular risk?’ today is celebrated in a hundred countries the Heart World Day. This year the Spanish godfather is football player Luis García, of Atlético de Madrid. ‘Eat healthy, do exercise and don’t smoke, because a healthy heart is a heart for all your live. Get together’ is the message on a TV spot that is going to be also played on the Atletico field this Sunday against Sevilla, and two thousand balloons with the heart shape will be released
In Spain, like in other countries, cardiovascular diseases are the first cause of death (32,7%), according to a study published by the Health Ministry in 2007. Of all of them, ischemic cardiopathies cause the greater number of human casualties inside our borders, though they are avoidable.
For this reason, the minister of Health, Bernat Soria, has recently met with the Spanish Confederation of Cardiovascular Patients, to impulse a new strategy which will have as key the prevention programs and the cardiac rehabilitation for all patients, from their stay at the hospital, until they day by day after they are discharged
These ailments are the second cause of hospitalization (roughly, almost half a million people a year) in Spanish facilities, behind only of the admissions related with birth. The medium cost for each cardiovascular patient hospitalized in our country is for the National Health System 5.206 Euros a day. ‘Prevention and promotion of healthy habits would avoid lots of diseases and deaths’ as recently stated the Minister, which in time would reduce the Health bills.
With motive of the anniversary of the World Day of these ailments, the Spanish Heart Foundation, together with the Spanish Cardiology Society, wants to draw attention on the risk factors that stress the possibilities of developing a cardiopathy or suffering vascular accidents. Arterial hypertension, lack of exercise, overweight, hypercholesterlolemia, hyperglycemia, smoking and a bad diet are known to be amongst the main risk factors of these diseases.
Guidelines to a good cardiovascular health
WHO estimates that nearly 80% of premature heart attacks are preventable, ‘very few are aware if our lifestyle and genetical inheritance may be increasing the risk of us developing a vascular disease or suffering a heart attack. It is never to soon nor too late to watch our heart’, assures professor Sharhryar Sheik, president of the World Heart Federation. ‘Knowing the own level of risk supposes to take a small but very important step into a better life’, he specified.
A healthy heart is the product of a balanced diet, that includes the necessary intake of fruits and vegetables, cereals, fish and restricting the proportions of salt and sugar that are added to the aliments. Besides, devoting at least 30 minutes a day to physical activity helps keeping the heart in good beat and the weight on a tight leash.
Smoking is one of the worse factors increasing the risk of suffering cardiovascular diseases, even in passive smokers. To quit smoking diminishes the associated risk, which can be reduced in half, after only a year.
WHO recommends also to regularly watch the arterial blood pressure, the levels of glycemia and cholesterol. It is estimated that by the year 2025 more than 1.500 million people will suffer hypertension. On that grounds, the British Food Standards Agency has offered the following advice to help from consuming excessive salt.
It is not only about stopping the impolse of shaking the salt shaker more than necessary, besides you ought to have a careful watch of the invisible salt, that is, the one that prepared aliments have within, approximately a 75% of the total recommendation of WHO for daily intake, about 5 grams a day.
Know the symptoms too
On occasions the first alert of a cardiac disease may be a heart attack o any other accident. The symptoms of heart attack are: pain in the middle of the chest, shoulder and left elbow, back and jaw. Furthermore, people may experience difficult breathing, feel unease, nauseous, palid, dizziness or faints and falls, and really cold sweat.
Warnings of a possible brain stroke are mainly the increase of sensibility in the face, arm, and leg, in most cases, concentrated in one side of the body. Confusion, numbness, linguistic trouble, partial sight loss in one or both eyes, and problems with coordination, are also symptoms of an ictus. br /> |
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