Researchers already know that stomach fat — known as abdominal obesity — increases the risk of having a first heart attack. But new research finds that having excessive fat in this specific area also increases risk of subsequent heart attacks.

Belly fay & other measures of obesity affect heart health

People with too much fat around their midsections and vital organs are at increased risk for heart disease, even if their body mass index falls within a healthy range, according to a new scientific report.

The excess fat in obesity was originally thought to be harmless (benign). However, we now know that excess fat causes chemical changes in your blood that increase your heart disease risk. When your fat cells become enlarged, they give off hormones that produce chronic inflammation.

Obesity also increases other heart disease risk factors, including:

• Sleep disorders.
• Type 2 diabetes.

Reason?

In other words, two people who weigh the same could have dramatically different risks of developing cardiovascular disease and diabetes, depending on where fat is deposited in their bodies.

We aren’t very sure why belly fat is increased, but what we know is people have become less active over the past several decades. Their food choices and portions have changed. People seem to have less free time and they are more depending on processed and fast food.

SEE ALSO: How Worst Eating Habits Increase Your Risk of Heart Disease

Worldwide, around 3 billion people are overweight or have obesity. The “obesity epidemic contributes significantly” to many chronic health conditions and cardiovascular disease cases around the world.

Ways to decrease belly fat or abdominal fat

The good news is that you may be able to control your belly fat. You won’t be surprised to hear it starts with a healthy lifestyle – a proper diet and regular exercise.

More encouraging is that interventions that reduce belly fat lower the risk for heart disease and diabetes.

Meeting federal guidelines for 150 minutes of physical activity per week may be sufficient to reduce abdominal fat, the analysis found, with no additional loss from longer activity times. Exercise alone or in combination with diet changes have been shown in some instances to reduce abdominal obesity even without weight loss. [Source: www.heart.org]

Maintaining a healthy waist circumference is important for preventing future heart attacks and strokes regardless of how many drugs you may be taking or how healthy your blood tests are.
– Quoted from Medical News Today

“I RAN MY FIRST MARATHON AFTER HAVING OPEN-HEART SURGERY” – Anna Borghesani.

She’s the new internet sensation and becoming an inspiration for everyone. Anna takes on her running a marathon dream post her serious open-heart surgery. Anna Borghesani, 41 now, was born with congenital heart disease, in her case pulmonary stenosis, which is a narrowing of a heart valve. Here’s an inspirational story of her in her words.

“In 2013, when I was 37, I started to feel very, very tired and I was getting sick all the time. I frequently had colds, high fevers and palpitations and kept feeling breathless. I’d always known I’d need to have a new heart valve fitted and, when my cardiologist finally told me I had a surgery date, I felt relieved.”

“However, the week before the operation I was absolutely terrified, as I knew they’d stop my heart from beating and use a heart-lung machine to circulate blood around my body during the operation. The surgery went well, but the psychological stress was immense.”

“A few days after the surgery, I was encouraged to start walking again. I was given an exercise schedule and had to walk for five minutes each day for the first few days and then build up to seven minutes and then 10, and so on.”

Very soon she was able to run 5K and then 10K once a week.

London Marathon Run

Anna wanted to run for charity and raise awareness to those people like her and tell them that they can lead a normal life as well. Her cardiologist wasn’t much happy but he understood her motivation.

“I didn’t do any races in the build-up to London, but on the day I completed it in 5hrs 29mins, which I was thrilled about. I loved everything about the event: the crowds who supported us, and the other runners running for great causes and reasons. Along the way, I raised almost £3,000 for Heart Research UK and the messages I received were incredibly heart-warming!”

This definitely gives an incredible willpower to all those similar people motivating them to beat the pain and inspiring them to live a normal life.

Story inspired from an article published in Women’s Running.

Work out to work hard

When the clock hits 1 PM, the IT workers have to jump from their table for a 10 minutes of rigorous stretching and bending. At sharpt 1, the radio of the company starts instructing them “ichi, ni, san (one, two, three)”.

The well suited staff has to compulsorily take part in this regular exercise drill implemented by Adoc International.

Inspired from this company, a many number of Japanese companies are encouraging and implementing exercise breaks in a hope to keep their employees healthy and productive.

“Japan’s population is quickly getting older and there are fewer and fewer kids. This is very big risk for companies,”

said Kenichiro Asano, who works in Fujikura’s healthcare strategy group.

The method

Adoc INternational staffs practice “rajio taiso”, an exercise routine often learned in schools.

“We chose rajio taiso because it was the simplest exercise to put in place,” said Clifton Lay, who works in Adoc International’s human resources department.

Who else

Toyota has their own in-house workout space.

While Sony employees are supposed to join the exercise drill daily at 3:00 PM and it’s for all from small level workers to top level executives.

Rakuten had installed some 12,000 movable desks so that workers can switch between sitting and standing positions throughout the day.

Japan has the world’s fastest ageing populations. The government also wants to take up this exercise drill into their campus to keep the citizens healthy as the growing number of retirees with health issues is a serious concern in Japan.

So what do you think? Do companies in India need such exercising drill? Well, YES since we are not in a list of top 50 healthy countries of the world as surveyed by Bloomberg.

When it comes to living a long healthy life, Italy is the place to be.

Bloomberg initiated a research on health index by collecting information about 163 countries of the world and created a Bloomberg Global Health Index.

Each country in the index was graded based on variables such as life expectancy, causes of death and health risks ranging from high blood pressure and tobacco use to malnutrition and the availability of clean water. – Bloomberg

The infographic below shows the rank of countries from the healthiest to the least healthy.

Unfortunately, India is no where in top 50 countries in their list.

Source: TIME

Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) is the world’s most common cause of death. It is commonly referred as heart disease or stroke.
Do you know, why it has now become critical to take action on CVDs? Here’s an infographic on cardiovascular disease facts.

Infographic Source: www.worldheartday.org