While heart specialists have always sounded an alarm over the steady increase in incidence of coronary artery disease, it is equally worrisome that quite a number of these cases come back for re-do angioplasty or coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery simply because they had gone back to unsafe diet and lifestyle.
Fresh blocks
“There is always the five per cent risk of the problem recurring in these cases, but that is mainly attributed to the genetic factor. The risk of fresh blocks in the coronary arteries is 20 per cent to 25 per cent in cases that return to habits such as smoking, and fat-rich food,” says chief cardiologist P.P. Muhamed Mustafa at Metro International Cardiac Centre in Kozhikode.
If not smoking, a return to cholesterol-rich food is the other major cause among many re-do cases.
It becomes incumbent on cardiologists and cardiothoracic surgeons to educate patients on the risk of returning to old habits that landed them in the hospital, he says.
“We insist on this because most of these people tend to assume that one surgery or angioplasty ends all trouble. This is a misconception that leads to further trouble,” he points out.
Life-long drugs
“CABG and angioplasty are not like appendectomy- the surgical removal of appendix that solves the problem forever. Blocks in the heart’s arteries can recur and this is why we put the patients on life-long drugs and diet discipline,” Dr. Mustafa says.
Unsafe food
If the genetic factor is absent, the recurrence can naturally be attributed to the patients returning to erratic and unsafe food and lifestyle, he says.
“Angioplasty and CABG are procedures to solve a current problem and not preventing what could happen later in another blood vessel. The chance of a similar problem occurring in another blood vessel is always high when you stray from what you ought to follow.”
The preventive mechanism rests mostly with the patients, and this consists of strict adherence to diet and lifestyle modification prescribed by the doctor.
Smoking
Dr. Mustafa blames most of the young heart attack cases on smoking. “We treated a 24-year-old man who had a heart attack. He had no genetic predisposition, no cholesterol or diabetes. Heavy smoking was the only culprit.”
Such young cases are to be watched, as there is always the tendency to go back to the old habits.
(Reporting by
K.V. Prasad)
