Dr Devi Prasad Shetty’s tips for a healthy heart: Carbohydrate is the next villain, not oil

Dr Devi Prasad Shetty, Chairman & MD, Narayana Health, says try to restrict carbohydrate intake and become spiritual. I am not saying you should become religious; become spiritual because knowing that somebody is up there protecting us, making sure that everything is done the way it should be, has a very, very, very positive force in your life.

What are the tips to keep your heart healthy?
I have a few messages and tips. First message to everyone is that do not wait for your heart to break down, see the doctors before it breaks down. We call it preventive maintenance. Everyone past the age of 30 must go for a preventive check-up. It may not be a very detailed preventive check-up but go for a preventive check-up.

Especially people who want to get into very extreme sports like cardio or a marathon race or a football, it is very important to get a detailed evaluation of the heart because in India nearly 10% to 15% of the adult population have some type of a heart disease and 50% of the heart patients suffer from silent ischemia, that means even if they develop a heart attack, they do not know about it.

My suggestion to everyone is that please wear a smartwatch and try to walk at least 8,000 to 10,000 steps per day. A lot of research articles publishing that 10,000 steps per day has a magical impact on your health. So, how do you walk 10,000 steps? You do not need to walk in the morning or evening. You can walk the whole day. All of you spend so many hours on the mobile phone. Get a earphone, put it into your ear. When you are talking, start walking.

So, walking while talking will give you one additional hour of walking. Count the number of steps in your smart watch and that will tell you where you are at that particular time. So, walking is something which is extremely useful for your health and the heart. Sitting is the next cigarette. So, it is very important for you to, I know your job today means you have to sit on the chair most of the time, but every 20 minutes, get up, try to do some work standing, then you sit.

Every half an hour, get up out of the chair, walk for two-three minutes, then come back and sit because sitting is extremely bad for your health as well as your posture. Mind, you have to be very careful with your posture. Most of the backache and the neck pain and the leg pain is due to bad posture. Go to the internet, find out what is the best way to get into the right posture. Then, I recommend everyone to practice yoga.

I know everybody wants to build big muscles. Even I was like that. I loved bodybuilding. I used to participate in all these contests, but nothing like yoga. Yoga has a magical impact on your life. Believe me, at least for 10-15 minutes every day practice yoga and then, please quit smoking. Check your weight, have a weighing machine at home which gives you the weight in pounds, not kilos. When it is in pounds, when it goes down, you quickly see something is happening and today, the villain is not the oil. Villain is carbohydrate – rice and chapati.

These two things are not very good for you in large quantities. Try to restrict the carbohydrate and my last advice to all of you, become spiritual. I am not saying you should become religious; become spiritual because knowing that somebody is up there protecting us, making sure that everything is done the way it should be, has a very, very, very positive force in your life.

Can I have a follow-up question? Just two more follow-up questions. I will extend my appointment with you, because you have raised two important points – one, avoid chapati, which means avoid gluten, is that what the message from you is?
No, I like to... I am not saying you should avoid chapati or rice but reduce the consumption of carbohydrates and sugar and instead go for the protein and the vegetables and substitute with the millets and other type of food. Carbohydrate is the next villain, not the oil today.

At 40 plus, what are the regular health checkups which we should do to ensure that aging is not affecting the heart?
You should go to any clinic or a diagnostic lab or a hospital, empty stomach in the morning and get your blood test done. They know what are the standard blood tests which gives all the blood sugar and the thyroid level and all these blood tests, simple blood tests, about 40-50 parameters, then you should go for echocardiogram to see how your heart is, a ECG, a chest ECG, a chest x-ray and an ultrasound of your stomach. All these things can be done within two hours.

Forty plus people, I recommend you to go for a calcium score of your heart that shows whether you have any early blockages and if calcium score is positive, then you should go for a CT angio. These are the things if you do it, we can almost guarantee you that in the next 365 days it is very unlikely that you will have any major healthcare event, not only heart.