prevent heart attack – Cardiac Wellness Institute

As a Preventive Cardiologist and head of a Cardiac Rehab Centre, I often ask myself the question, “Is the nature of work a reason for a person’s heart attack?” Putting together recent medical research and my decade-long interactions with patients and their family members, I have gained some insights into this aspect of how our jobs can make or break our heart health.

The following job categories are reported to have a higher association with heart attacks:

Doctors / Nurses / Other healthcare professionals
Business executives
IT professionals
Banking / Financial sector
Administrative sector
Secretarial jobs
Customer service sector
Manufacturing sector / blue collar jobs
Entertainment industry

We are aware that heart attack is a multifactorial disease with lifestyle, environmental and metabolic factors playing a role in the causation. We also know that evidence is mounting on the health hazards of air pollution and elevated noise levels, and that jobs with exposure to either or both of these will obviously pose a threat. However, the three culprits common to all the above high-risk jobs are mental stress, prolonged sitting and unhealthy eating.

Job Stress

The term ‘Job Stress’ refers to the mental stress caused by work pressures, unrealistic expectations at work and the lack of control over work-related occurrences. Job stress leads to poor work-life balance and vice versa. This vicious cycle quickly escalates to poor emotional health and becomes causative for hypertension, insomnia, metabolic dysfunction and cardiovascular disease like heart attack and stroke.

Jobs where one is directly responsible for the health, wellbeing, finances, experience and satisfaction of others are typically considered high stress jobs.

Prolonged Sitting

Any job that requires continuous sitting, be it computer-related, banking-related, administrative or similar, can have deleterious effects on our heart health. Even long-distance drivers, pilots, frequent intercontinental travelers are at a high risk as they tend to stay in the seated position for more than a couple of hours.

Our earlier article had touched upon how prolonged sitting is as bad for the heart as smoking is (http://www.cardiacwellnessinstitute.com/heart-disease-treatment-prevention/uncategorized/sitting-is-the-new-smoking/). We now know that the antidote to this is taking frequent breaks to stand up, walk, and do some exercises. In fact, any physical movement to interrupt the monotony of sitting will give the body’s circulation a vitality boost. Ideally, every 30 minutes of sitting should be pulsed with 5-10 minutes of movement. This will not only ensure your blood vessels are working will but will also improve your productivity at work as the brain gets recharged during movement.

Unhealthy Eating

The poor eating habits that are observed in these high-risk jobs are possibly due to a combination of stress eating, eating to break the boredom of sitting and snacking on unhealthy foods to fuel the brain cells that are also reeling under the pressure of stress and sedentariness. It is not a trait that you have to live with. It is a behavior that can be modified.

Are you eating while sitting at your work desk?
Are you snacking on high salt / sugar / packaged foods?
Are you consuming packaged beverages or caffeinated drinks often?
Are you eating when not hungry?
Are you eating when stressed?

If you have answered ‘yes’ to one or more of the above questions, it is advisable to seek the help of a doctor or dietitian to support your behavior modification journey.

In summary, if you are currently engaged in any of the high-risk jobs or have the hazardous heart health risk factors mentioned above, it is time to take remedial measures. Support is just around the corner to help you have a comprehensive understanding of your risk for heart disease and to guide you in accordance with your personal choices and lifestyle patterns.

As a Preventive Cardiologist, the question I get asked most often is this:

“I (or someone I know) have no bad habits and have not had any health problems in the past, but ended up with a heart attack. How come doctor?”

My immediate response is that there are 9 risk factors for serious heart and blood vessel disorders like heart attack and stroke. In fact, each of these 9 are independent risk factors which can cause disease by itself and when present in combination poses a very high risk of fatal heart disease.

The 9 cardiovascular risk factors: The Framingham (1) and the INTERHEART (2) studies are both landmark research works that have clearly identified the cardiovascular risk factors in all populations. The image below depicts the 9 risk factors that we should all be aware of and should watch out for.

A questionnaire-based survey was conducted this World Heart Day by Cardiac Wellness Institute to study the presence of behavioural risk factors for heart disease among college-going women in Chennai. Of the 554 students aged 15-30 years who responded to this survey, almost 40% reported to be chronically stressed. We have also noted a similar trend of staggeringly high rates of chronic mental stress among young corporate employees. Intensive lifestyle modification supervised by medical professionals has proven effective in changing dietary, exercise, sleep and stress-related risk factors in all age groups including young adults.

Hypertension, Diabetes and Dyslipidemia are the three silent killers which can only be identified by routine health check up. All 3 conditions often co-exist in the same individual but do not cause any symptoms leading to a very high risk of sudden death. Simple tests like blood pressure measurement and blood sugar and lipid level analysis will throw light on your risk profile. Mild variations from normal and early stage of disease can be managed with lifestyle changes alone but more severe abnormalities will require medications in addition to lifestyle changes.

Unhealthy diet, Inadequate exercise, Obesity, Mental stress along with tobacco use and alcohol abuse are the risk factors that are soaring high in our population. Spreading awareness about the ill-effects of these lifestyle choices is the first step in curbing them. The second and most crucial step is providing the right tools to help people modify their risky behaviour. Exercise training, meal planning guidelines, stress management techniques, goal-setting to become fit, and professional help to quit smoking and drinking are some ways we help individuals succeed in making these difficult but salient changes that impact their health in a very positive way.

If you have a family history of cardiovascular disease, that is your parents or siblings have had a heart attack, stroke or other cardiac problems, you need to be even more vigilant about the 9 risk factors and take all steps to lead a heart-healthy lifestyle.

Action Point 1 If you are over 40 years old and have not had a medical check yet, it is time you saw your doctor for a cardiovascular risk assessment. If you have had a doctor check up more than 2 years ago, you need to repeat one now.

Action Point 2 If you are over 20 years old and think you have 1 or more of the above risk factors, you should get a doctor’s opinion and blood examination every 5 years.

Action Point 3 If you have been taking medicines for any of the above risk factors, you need to revisit the problem along with your doctor to understand the response to medications and the need for lifestyle modification to reduce and eventually even stop medicines if all parameters are well controlled.