‘MY HEART, YOUR HEART’- Mobile heart traveling across the city this World Heart Day, 2018

World Heart Day on September 29, is a day observed all over the world to help guide citizens towards living a well-nourished life with a healthy heart. This year, P.D. Hinduja Hospital will reach out to more around 2000 people in Mumbai by encouraging them to ‘Pledge’ to have a healthy heart. Aligning with this year’s theme of ‘My heart, your heart’, asking people to make a promise to choose a healthy living option. The campaign – a moving three dimensional 8 feet heart – will travel in and around the areas of the hospital encouraging Mumbaikars to get a picture clicked with a pledge to maintain a healthy heart.

Explaining the thought process behind this activity, Mr. Gautam Khanna, CEO, P. D. Hinduja Hospital said, “Cardiovascular diseases remains to be the leading cause of death among Indians. By encouraging Mumbaikars this World Heart Day to take a pledge that they will adopt a healthy lifestyle, we at P. D. Hinduja Hospital aims to make a difference to the overall wellbeing of individuals and also inspire them to donate their heart. I am glad to see the overwhelming enthusiasm among the people towards the initiative.”

According to the Lancet report, at ages 30-69 years, of 1.3 million cardiovascular deaths, 0.9 million (68.4%) were caused by coronary heart disease and 0.4 million (28.0%) by a stroke. Adults born after the 1970s are much more vulnerable to such deaths than those born earlier, the study shows.

Talking about the growing heart disease in India, Dr. C. K. Ponde, Consultant Cardiologist, P. D. Hinduja Hospital & MRC said, “India is going through an epidemic of heart disease and unfortunately the growing incidents are seen in people under 40 who are suffering from coronary artery diseases 20% more than what we saw 5 years back. This can be attributed to a variety of reasons like stress, lack of exercise, increase in consumption of junk food, family history, etc. Adopting simple lifestyle changes every day like having low sugar and low-fat diet combined with a high fibers intake, regular exercising and along with the determination to quit smoking will drive in preventing heart disease. Few major risk factors for CVD are diabetes, blood pressure, cholesterol and smoking. Therefore, people who fall under these risk factors should opt for timely treatment to control them”