Kathmandu, Sept 16

Unhealthy lifestyle and unhygienic eating habits are contributing to increase in the number of heart patients in Nepal.

High preference to junk food, chewing tobacco, excessive smoking and alcohol intake, and sedentary lifestyle of most of the city dwellers are the major causes of increasing heart problems.

Consultant Cardiologist, Dr DB Karki said risk of heart diseases increases mainly because of high consumption of tobacco, alcohol, high blood pressure, hypertension, high cholesterol, obesity, physical inactivity, stress, diabetes, unhealthy diet and various other reasons.

He said, “Cardiovascular diseases claim over 17.3 million lives worldwide annually and about seven to eight per cent of urban Nepali population suffers from heart ailments.”

Addressing an event held to mark 17th World Heart Day here today, Dr Karki said people could avoid heart diseases if they adopted a healthy lifestyle.

“Cases of heart diseases among Nepali people has almost doubled in the last 10 years,” said Dr JP Jeswal, senior consultant cardiologist at Norvic Hospital. Six million people in the country live with the high risk of heart problems and males are more prone to heart diseases in comparison to females.

“Due to hormonal changes, males have high risk of heart problems while females, whose menstruation have stopped, also are prone to heart problems,”he  said.

Though heart problems can be easily treated in the initial stage, negligence of the public may lead to serious heart complications.