Top Tips to Stay Heart-Healthy

Men over 40 have nearly 50% chance of developing heart disease during their lifetime. They must thus take precautionary steps to avoid it from occuring. Dr. Peter Chang shares some tips on how men can stay heart-healthy.

While men are so focused on their career and juggling work and family, heart disease could be building undetected. Although heart disease is not gender specific, it is particularly a male problem. Studies have shown that men under 65 are about four times more likely to die from heart disease as women in the same age group.

Their increased risk is due to multiple reasons such as high blood pressure and cholesterol, unhealthy lifestyle, smoking and stress. These harmful habits are often ignored, leading to undetected blood vessel ageing and accelerated increase in the risk of stroke or heart attack.

As a man, I know we are not always the best at caring for ourselves. We are lax about our diet and find excuses for not exercising and paying more attention to our body. But research has shown that smoking and avoiding exercise can raise the chances of sudden cardiac arrest by 12%! So every man should get serious about heart health. Many risk factors for heart disease are preventable.

We recently conducted a Men’s Health Public Forum on 19 November 2016, where I had the privilege of giving a talk on this very same topic, providing an overview of ways to prevent, diagnose and treat heart disease in men. We hope to conduct more of such initiatives to educate men on heart disease prevention.

By Dr. Peter Chang