Noted cardiac surgeon Dr HS Bedi delivering talk on 'How to be Heart Smart' at Lions Club, Ludhiana
Dr Bedi delivers talk on ‘How to be Heart Smart’
By Raju William
Ludhiana, September 3, 2017: Fifty is the typical age when men are the most susceptible to Coronary Heart Disease (CHD), said noted cardiac surgeon Dr Harinder Singh Bedi while delivering a talk on 'How to be Heart Smart' at Lions Club, Ludhiana.
Dr. Bedi who is Chairman Cardiac Care Centre, a unit of Ludhiana Mediways Hospital, informed the members of the Lions Club that four people die of a heart attack every minute in India. In Punjab, the number of heart disease patients is about 62 per 1000 people.
He advised men and women in their 50s to exercise at least five times a week for 30 minutes a day; get annual physical examination done; E.C.G, Treadmill Test (TMT), lipid profile and blood sugar test every year, Echocardiogram every 5 years and a 'nuclear perfusion scan' & a CT angiograph in carefully selected cases. C-reactive proteins in the blood should be less than 1 mg per liter at this age.
According to Dr. Bedi a Treadmill test can monitor the exercise capacity of a person’s heart and pick up subtle atherosclerosis (blockage of coronary arteries). “If this test is positive or if you have symptoms like chest pain, your doctor may decide to get your angiograph done,” he informed.
An angiograph is of two types- a conventional angiograph, which needs hospital administration and involves threading a catheter in your heart and injecting a dye in the heart arteries. A CT Angiograph is a non-invasive screening and diagnostic test, which takes just 5 minutes to perform. “It is an excellent screening test for susceptible patients,” he said.
The members of Lions Club felicitating Dr Bedi after the talk
Dr Bedi explained that at times, doctor may advise a nuclear perfusion test, which is done to detect any ischemia (lack of blood supply in the heart) and to see whether the ischemia is reversible. If the nuclear perfusion test shows significant reversible ischemia, the clinician may decide to perform stenting or bypass surgery to provide revascularization to the heart.
The talk was organized by Lion Dr. R.K Garg and Lion Dr. Rajesh Thapar.