Heart of the matter

Consider your heart your body’s central. So keep the traffic in and out of the arteries of this fist-sized organ free-flowing. Discipline and hard work are needed to keep your heart lean and fit, especially when the many tasty temptations and lazy conveniences of modern living can tempt one away from a heart-healthy lifestyle.

            Dr. Ong Hean Yee, consultant cardiologist at Alexandra Hospital, said: “We should not eat so much meat. Only 10 percent of our diet is supposed to be made up meat products.”

            A heart-healthy lifestyle should actually start from young. East Shore Hospital consultant cardiologist Baldev Singh said that the accumulation of fatty deposits in the heart’s arteries can start in childhood.

            Echoing him, Dr. Seow Swee Chong, consultant cardiologist at the National University Hospital’s cardiac department, said: “Autopsy studies have shown that fatty streaks can be found in the arteries of children as young as two years old.”

            These “fatty streaks” are early signs of atherosclerosis, or progressive narrowing and hardening of the arteries due to the build-up of cholesterol, fatty deposits and other cells in the inner artery walls, or intimate.

            Such a build-up eventually leads to coronary artery disease.

            The number of streaks increases with the number of risk factors such as high cholesterol, blood pressure and obesity.

            Cardiologists spoke to advised those aged 35 and above to go for a general health screening to check their cholesterol, blood pressure and sugar levels.

            The trick to keeping your coronary arteries clear and plaque free, they said, is to keep your weight down and eat a healthy, balanced diet.

            Dr. Ng Wai Lin, consultant cardiologist at Raffles Hospital and deputy director of Raffles Heart Centre, said: “A good, well-balanced diet, regular exercise and maintaining an ideal body weight are still the best preventive measures.”

            Koay Saw Lan, head of the department of dietetics and nutrition services at Singapore General Hospital, said: “Healthy food habits can help reduce three of the major risk factors for a heart attack – high blood cholesterol, high blood pressure and excess body weight.”

            A diet low in saturated fats and cholesterol will help to lower LDL cholesterol, known as the bad cholesterol, and using unsaturated fats in place of saturated fats will help to further lower blood cholesterol levels.

            Sources of unsaturated fats include soybeans, most nuts and seeds and fatty fish like salmon and tuna. When cooking, use methods that require little or no fat such as broiling, poaching or steaming.

            Singh explained: “Fat is fat. You eat it, you’ll grow fat.”

            Fiber too helps lower blood cholesterol when eaten regularly as part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol. Foods high in soluble fiber include oats, beans, peas and citrus fruits.

            Regular exercise keeps your cardiovascular engine humming too. Aerobic exercises like brisk walking, swimming, cycling and jogging are recommended by Dr. Tan Swee Yanw, consultant at the department of cardiology at the National Heart Centre Singapore.

            Vigorous intensity exercises like jogging should be done at least three times a week for at least 20 minutes each time while exercises of moderate intensity like brisk walking should be done at least five times a week for at least 30 minutes each time.

            Given the worldwide epidemic of childhood obesity, doctors spoken to recommended that overweight children be put on diet and exercise plans.

            A childhood obesity study in The New England Journal Of Medicine last December found that a higher body mass index in childhood is associated with an increased risk of coronary heart disease in adulthood.

            Cardiologists here say that truncal obesity, or belly fat, is deadly for the heart. Men’s waists should not measure more than 90 cm while women’s waist sizes should not exceed 80cm.

            Dr. Lim Soo Teik, head and senior consultant at the department of cardiology at the National Heart Centre Singapore, said: “Having belly fat means your body is more resistant to insulin action and this results in higher proportions of  bad cholesterol and lower levels of good cholesterol.”

            Ong said: “The sooner you get rid of belly fat, the better. If you’ve been obese for 40 years, your body and heart will have been damaged by obesity for 40 years.”

June Cheong/ANN/Straits Times

The Jakarta Post/Friday, October 3, 2008