Lifestyle diseases is a ticking time bomb

Dr Anand Agarwal, a renowned cardiac surgeon in Narayana Hrudayalaya Hospitals, shares his views on the increasing trend of lifestyle diseases in the country.

Savitri Bai, 65, and her son Rahul, 36, were operated by me in a gap of 10 months. Both of them underwent Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting (CABG) for blocked Coronary Arteries. Arteries supply blood to our heart muscles.

This is a pitiable state we have reached. The reason - unregulated, unrestricted lifestyle habits. Indians are sitting on a ticking Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) time bomb. What is worrying is the increasing prevalence of the disease in the age group of 30-40 years.

There are six to seven major reasons which directly or in combination affect our Coronary Arteries. This includes diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, smoking, family history, stress and central obesity. All these factors lead to hardening of the arteries and predispose to form a clot which leads either to angina (chest pain related to heart) or myocardial infarction (heart attack).

Six out of the seven factors I have enumerated above are because of our indulgent attitude. We nowadays eat for our greed, than our bodily needs. Did we have so many restaurants before? Now every street will have a minimum of 5-6 restaurants offering variety of curries. The result is for everyone to see.

The other major factor is the subconscious stress level which is building in our individual lives and the society. The reason is our inability to enjoy what we have achieved and the need to hanker for more. This stress coefficient is under- diagnosed and unrecognised entity in our society.

How to reverse this trend? It is we who have got to do it at individual and societal level. We have to regulate our lifestyle and slow down a bit.