Preventing coronary heart disease
Preventing coronary heart disease
Bupa’s Chief medical officer, Dr Paul Zollinger-Read talks about the ways in which you can help to prevent heart disease.
To find out more about heart health, visit our Heart and circulation hub: http://bit.ly/1fpeMXv
The content is intended for general information only and does not replace the need for personal advice from a qualified health professional.
Content
8.38 -> Hello.
12.719 -> Paul Zollinger Read.
13.719 -> I'm the Chief Medical Officer at Bupa and
I want to talk to you today about heart disease.
18.689 -> Specifically, how to prevent heart disease.
21.42 -> Now, your heart is a muscle.
24.17 -> And just like any other muscle it needs a
supply of oxygen rich blood to work properly.
30.579 -> It receives its own blood supply through the
coronary arteries and their branches which
36.75 -> lie on the surface of the heart.
41.05 -> What happens in heart disease is they silt
up.
45.24 -> They get these things called plaques in them.
48.49 -> Now if they generally silt up, then people
can get what's called angina, chest pain which
55.28 -> typically comes on when they walk up a hill
or they eat.
60.04 -> But occasionally you can get narrowing's that
then burst.
65.689 -> Those plaques rupture.
67.93 -> And then an artery gets blocked and you have
a heart attack.
73.06 -> But what are the things that create and cause
and aggravate heart disease?
77.42 -> And if we look at them in turn, smoking is
probably one of the most significant factors.
84.829 -> Absolutely no doubt about that.
87.11 -> In fact, when the smoking ban was brought
in, in public places, we saw a really significant
93.359 -> fall in the incidence of heart attacks.
96.74 -> And that happened within six to nine months.
99.85 -> So we know, smoking causes heart disease and
can precipitate heart attacks.
108.01 -> The next one is blood pressure.
110.38 -> The tricky thing about blood pressure is you
don't know you've got it.
113.13 -> So, it's a really good idea to get your blood
pressure checked.
116.959 -> It's easy to do and now, more and more people
are doing it themselves.
121.74 -> The other is blood sugar, diabetes.
125.49 -> If you have diabetes, you are at much greater
risk of heart disease.
130.54 -> And the most important thing there is that
you really focus hard and keep your blood
136 -> sugar under control.
138.06 -> You follow your doctor's advice, you take
the medications or if you're on diet, you
142.831 -> stick to that diet.
145.2 -> It's rare for people to be put on treatment
for cholesterol if they don't have a family
150.63 -> history.
152.09 -> But it's not unheard of.
153.89 -> Because if your cholesterol has a lot of bad
and very little good, your doctor might decide
159.58 -> to put you on cholesterol lowering tablets
known as statins.
164.77 -> Then we look at diet itself.
167.73 -> Now those plaques I talked about are formed
by cholesterol.
173.93 -> And cholesterol, there are many types but
essentially there's what we call a good type
178.21 -> which is called HDL and there's a bad type,
LDL.
183.48 -> So, when you get your cholesterol tested,
it's important to know how much good you've
188.98 -> got because good reduces heart disease and
how much bad you've got.
196.38 -> Exercise is crucial and it's interesting isn't
it because you think of exercise as oh, I'm
201.02 -> losing weight but actually that's not the
mechanism.
205.7 -> So when I exercise I know my good cholesterol
goes up and my bad cholesterol goes down.
211.81 -> And what we've found out is, it actually has
a big anti-inflammatory affect.
219.21 -> So these little plaques are inflamed and you
exercising reduces that inflammation.
226.67 -> Now you don't need to do a great deal.
229.41 -> Three or four times a week, 15 to 30 minutes,
brisk walking.
233.77 -> You don't need to be a marathon runner.
236.67 -> The other thing is alcohol.
238.57 -> Now, we all know alcohol is bad for you in
large quantities but there's no doubt that
246.12 -> one or two units a day is good for heart disease.
248.65 -> It has a positive effect on reducing heart
disease.
252.6 -> So, there's lots you can do to prevent heart
disease.
256.9 -> If you're at all concerned, go and see your
doctor and get those tests done.
261.97 -> And if you've got a family history, really
take it seriously.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9QETgv4pto