Mysuru: Across the world, every year 12 million people die due to heart disease, said Dr. Upendra Shenoy, Chief Cardiac Surgeon, Columbia  Asia Hospital.

Delivering a talk on ‘A Healthy Heart,’ organised by Rotary Ivory City Mysore, at M.S. Subbalakshmi Hall, Mahajana High School in Jayalakshmipuram, here recently  he said, “Due to lifestyle and smoking, we are seeing more heart diseases among younger men and women. Surprisingly, women have started smoking more than men, which has increased heart-related issues.”

“The mantra for healthy living is regular exercise, healthy food habit, avoid smoking, regular test for diabetes, hypertension and cholesterol and one should make sure that they are controlled well,” added Dr. Shenoy.

He also briefed about how to maintain a healthy lifestyle, how to diagnose if one has heart problem and how it can be treated, which food is good and which food should be avoided and exercise for 20 to 30 minutes five days a weeks.

Symptoms of heart problem:  “If one comes across symptoms like chest discomfort while walking, breathlessness, sweats profusely, one has to test for heart disease. For healthy lifestyle, one should be active, should quit smoking, eat right and sleep adequately for a minimum of seven to eight hours,” said Dr. Shenoy.

In the question-answer session that followed, the audience clarified their doubts regarding diet and what should be the immediate steps needed to be taken if they come across heart attack person.

Dr. Shenoy said, “If anyone suffers heart attack, if you have 150 mg aspirin tablet or even 80 mg cholesterol tablet give him before shifting him to hospital.”

The 80-year-old R.P. Shivaswamy, retired Deputy Commissioner of Stamps, Bengaluru, who underwent Angioplasty in 2006 and leads a healthy life who too attended the programme said, “It was very useful. I am adopting what he said and if we follow those instructions nothing will happen. I will not miss walking for half-an-hour every day, apart from this, just 50 per cent of food we should take with more frequency. We should prefer to have seasonal fruits which include pomegranate, papaya and Kiwi fruit. Apart from all this, the most important thing is we should not get tensed and should be always be relaxed. We should sleep at least for half an hour in the afternoon.”

Rotary Ivory City Mysore President M. Perumal, Assistant Governor, Zone 7 Sunil Baliga, Secretary Jyothi Mukesh and others were present, according to a press release from Rotary Ivory.