Heart tips on World Heart Day
HOUSTON - Heart disease is the number one killer in the world. That's why today has been deemed World Heart Day as an awareness campaign about ways to prevent cardiovascular disease.
There are many simple ways to prevent it. We talked with the President and CEO of Texas Heart Institute, Dr. Joseph Rogers, who is also a cardiologist with the Texas Heart Medical Group. He shares some heart-healthy tips and explains why World Heart Day takes place every September 29.
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"It's a global initiative to focus people on heart health. Cardiac diseases, aside from non-transmissible communicable diseases like infectious diseases, remains the number one killer across the world. In fact, about 18.6 million people will die of heart disease in the next year. That's more than the total population of New York City and Los Angeles and Chicago and Houston, just to put that into perspective. So it's really an effort for us to think globally about how we can reduce that burden of cardiovascular disease," explains Dr. Rogers.
The cardiologist says many of those deaths are preventable with lifestyle changes.
"Yes, to be sure that's true, one of the cardiovascular disease that we see is driven by atherosclerosis or hardening of the arteries, and we know that there are a number of modifiable risk factors that we can influence the course of our lives, smoking cessation, blood pressure control, cholesterol control, managing diabetes, maintaining a normal weight and exercise," encourages Dr. Rogers.
The American Heart Association suggests everyone get a heart screening by the age of 20 as a baseline.
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