Page 3 - Seniorstoday June 2022 Issue

Publisher’s Note

Unbreak my heart

At a routine annual check-up last year, I was when a coronary artery (one of the blood vessels
quite shocked when my cardiologist told me that that wrap around the heart to nourish it) gets
my heart was functioning at 25 per cent of its clogged, resulting in irreversible damage to the
capacity. I am a non-drinker, I don’t smoke, I am heart muscle.
a borderline diabetic and just slightly overweight. Age and genetics are unavoidable factors in the
I couldn’t understand what may have caused this risk of heart disease. Scientific evidence suggests
condition and he concluded it could have been that the heart and the mind co-exist. Emotional
Covid. upheavals do have an effect on the heart. Hence,
The heart is a fascinating organ. It’s essentially a being happy emotionally will also keep our hearts
pump made of muscle with its own electrical and happy. And help us enjoy our seniorhood.
plumbing systems. It beats automatically, but also ~ ~
relies on the brain to regulate the strength and It would not be wrong to say that well-known
pace of its contractions. In fact there’s evidence the cardiologist Dr Eric Borges writes about the
brain pulses ever so slightly at the same time the matters of the heart in our Cover Story this month.
heart beats. But while the heart is tenacious as it is, From a medical point of view of course. Then,
beating roughly 100,000 times a day to keep us there’s Tina Turner’s ‘Who needs a heart when
alive, it needs us to support it as much as we can. a heart can be broken?’ which is a fascinating
Post my diagnosis, I went through a series of corollary.
tests. It was painful waiting outside cardiologist The heart, dil or whatever one call it is an integral
consulting rooms. Since then, I have made part of our everyday chatter. Don’t take it to
numerous efforts to improve my heart health, heart, one may say. French mathematician and
including my fitness by running and going on a philosopher Blaise Pascal said: “The heart has
diet. I’ve started eating less processed food and reasons, which the reason cannot understand.” Or
even lesser of red meats. Today, I also meditate as the adline goes, yeh dil maange more. Indeed.
and have a lovely outlook on my heart.
The process of atherosclerosis – the hardening
and thickening of our arteries – is occurring
throughout our lives. Our job is to slow it as much Vickram Sethi
as we can. That’s because a heart attack happens Publisher and Editor-in-Chief

SENIORS TODAY | ISSUE #36 | JUNE 2022 3