By Nkiru Odinkemelu
When John Ochene (not real names) was about to have a heart attack, he never foresaw it coming. He had no “serious signs,” except for occasional chest pain, fatigue and dizziness.
To him, the meager signs were not something to worry about. Concluding that it was as a result of stress, he kept postponing his appointment with his doctor until that fateful day the attack struck.
John was a hustler. He was usually the first to leave his apartment as early as 4:45am to catch up with early buses conveying people from the Lagos mainland to the island and the last to return at about 11pm. He hardly had enough sleep and ate junks always.
In the office, he sits for hours without standing. Most times, he skips breakfast while lunch is usually served him on his desk. He munched the food as he did his works. He was dedicated to his duty and had bagged staff of the year award for four consecutive years. At nights, he relaxes with friends at a popular bar to pass time for the hectic traffic gridlock to subside> There, they consume alcohol, smoke and watch some football matches.
John’s lifestyle applies to so many in our modern society, especially city dweller; to most people, it is an everyday hustler’s way of life.
As much as this may sound simple, health experts have sounded the warnings that common habits, as skipping breakfast, stress, sitting for hours without standing up, smoking and inhaling another person’s cigarette smoke could be detrimental to the heart.
Below are some ‘common habits’ that are detrimental to your heart.
The heart
According to medical experts, the heart is one of the most important organs in human body. It is composed of muscle, which pumps blood throughout the body, beating approximately 72 times per minute of our lives. The blood that the heart pumps carries all the vital materials, which help our bodies function and removes the waste products that we do not need.
“The brain requires oxygen and glucose, if they are not received continuously, it begins to lose consciousness; muscles need oxygen, glucose and amino acids, as well as the proper ratio of sodium, calcium and potassium salts in order to contract normally. The glands need sufficient supplies of raw materials from which to manufacture the specific secretions. If the heart ever ceases to pump blood, the body begins to shut down and after a very short period of time will die.”
The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) noted that if the heart suddenly and unexpectedly stops beating and stops supplying blood to the brain and other vital organs, the individual is bound to have a condition known as Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA), which causes death, if not being treated within minutes.
Thus, as fuel is important for vehicular mobility, so is blood necessary to human existence. Therefore, to lead a healthy life, an individual must master the skills of catering for the blood-pumping organ of the body – the heart.
Incidentally, rather than taking care of the heart, most people have turned around to feed it, consciously or unconsciously, with food and substances that further harm or militate against its optimal function.
This kind of attitude, experts have warned, is a major contributor to the demographic and epidemiological transition from the grip of Communicable Diseases to Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) as they are fast becoming the leading cause of global deaths; with cardiovascular diseases taking the lead.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) data has consistently shown that cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the leading cause of death globally. The 2010 WHO Global Status Report on NCDs shows that “in 2008, the four major NCDs, namely cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, cancers and chronic respiratory diseases put together, killed 36 million (63 per cent) persons out of the 57 million global deaths recorded. Of these, CVDs rank first with 17 million deaths (48 per cent) out of the 36 million NCD deaths.”
Furthermore, “the 2014 report showed that in 2012, the four major NCDs claimed 38 million (68 per cent) lives out of the world’s 56 million deaths, and over 40 per cent of the deaths were premature deaths under the age of 70 years. CVDs alone killed 17.5 million people, representing 31 per cent of all the global deaths and 46 per cent of NCD deaths. Of these deaths, an estimated 7.4 million were due to coronary heart disease and 6.7 million were due to stroke. Over three quarters of CVD deaths take place in low- and middle-income countries.”
Going by the above report, it could be deduced that deaths due to a heart disease exceeded that of any other and are most prevalent in middle-income countries, which Nigeria happens to fall in.
Heart disease
Heart disease is an umbrella term, which addresses conditions and disorders that affect the structuring and functioning of the heart in some way or the other. Common among them are: heart attack, cardiac arrest, heart failure, heart valve diseases, congenital heart diseases, heart muscle diseases or irregular heart rhythms. While some develop as a result of lifestyle disorder, a few are inherent in nature.
Heart attack: The American Heart Association says “heart muscle needs oxygen to survive. A heart attack occurs when the blood flow that brings oxygen to the heart muscle is severely reduced or cut off completely.”
In case of heart attack, the heart is still sending blood around the body and the person remains conscious and is still breathing, different from cardiac arrest, where heart stops pumping blood around your body. A heart attack always causes some permanent damage to the heart muscle, but the sooner treatment is given, the more muscle it is possible to save.
Causes: Most heart attacks are caused by coronary heart disease. Other rarer cause of heart attack is spontaneous coronary artery dissection (SCAD), where one or more of the coronary arteries tear.