“India is facing an epidemic of lifestyle diseases like hypertension, diabetes, dyslipidemia, which culminate into strokes, heart attacks and peripheral vascular disease, especially with relevance to the young population,” Dr. RR Kasliwal tells Dr. Rishi Jain in an interview. Prevention of these risk factors eventually boils down to lifestyle modification – quitting tobacco, living stress-free, eating right, sleeping right and reverting to the eastern way of living with yoga and exercise. With a special focus on value of proper sleep and rest, Dr. Kasliwal says, “If your body is tired and the heart needs rest, it has to be given that rest. Sleep disorders can cause hypertension, it can precipitate arrhythmias or even heart failure.” Smoking, taking stress, not taking time out to eat, relax or exercise is resulting in increasing incidence of acute MI, devastating families and contributing to the economic burden of India. “In JACC, Journal of the American College of Cardiology, there is an article saying, curing atherosclerosis should be the new paradox. India has to pick up preclinical atherosclerosis and cure it.” “We neither have the monetary nor the capital resources to treat every heart attack with a PCI or CABG. We will just have to prevent, prevent and prevent.”
