Primary prevention outweigh medications, interventions in cardiac ailments: Dr Sushil

HoD Cardiology GMC Jammu Dr Sushil Sharma examining patients at Purmandal on Sunday.
HoD Cardiology GMC Jammu Dr Sushil Sharma examining patients at Purmandal on Sunday.

Excelsior Correspondent

Jammu, Sept 10: In view of the ever increasing incidence of cardiac ailments and lifestyle diseases Head Department of Cardiology Dr Sushil Sharma held a day long cardiac awareness cum health Checkup camp at Village Mandal, Panchayat katwalta Block Purmandal, Samba for educating masses regarding the importance of primary prevention in decreasing mortality and morbidity associated with cardiovascular diseases. More than 250 people were screened; evaluated, diagnosed and free medicines were given as per the requirements.
While interacting with the people, Dr Sushil stated that despite being largely preventable, cardiovascular diseases cause more than 20.5 million deaths every year. An estimated 80% of cardiovascular disease, including heart disease and stroke, is preventable. The main elements of CVD prevention are healthy diet, physical activity, avoiding tobacco. There are many risk factors associated with heart disease and stroke. Some risk factors, like family history, cannot be modified, while others, like high blood pressure, can be modified through lifestyle interventions and treatment. Millions of people worldwide struggle to control the risk factors that lead to cardiovascular disease and many others remain unaware that they are at high risk.
He elaborated that despite a fall in the proportion of CVD related deaths over the last 40?years, the rate of decline is slowing while morbidity from CVD is rising. “The ability to identify those at risk of CVD allows for risk factor modification through primary prevention. There are a number of factors that affect a person’s risk of developing CVD including increasing age, gender, family history and ethnicity which are non-modifiable. There are also a number of factors in terms of lifestyle and pharmacological interventions that have been demonstrated to affect CVD risk and are modifiable including hypertension, obesity, tobacco smoking, diet, exercise, cholesterol levels, alcohol intake and diabetes mellitus control,” he said.
Others who were part of this camp included Dr Venkatesh Illepu and Dr. Dhaneshwer kapoor Paramedics and Volunteers who were part of the team included Vikas Kumar, Raghav Rajput, Ranjeet Singh, Maninder Singh, Paramveer Singh, Rajinder Singh, Gourav Sharma, Jatin Bhasin, Manoj Sharma, Amnish Dutta and Nirvair Singh Bali.