How do you react when you hear the news of two popular faces who took their fitness very seriously succumbing to heart attack in their 40s? The passing of Sidharth Shukla (40 years) and superstar Puneeth Rajkumar (46 years) made us question if exercising is actually the answer to live long and stay healthy.

Doctors warn that exercising, especially moderate to severe exercise without knowing any underlying cardiac condition is not good. Dr. Sanjay Mittal Director Clinical and Preventive Cardiology, Heart Institute, Medanta explains, “Every medicine is a poison if given at the wrong time and wrong dose, same is the case with exercise. Certain exercises in a normal person also can increase the risk of certain abnormalities. It can prove to be fatal at times. Hence, it is important to get yourself evaluated before you take up heavy exercising. There are certain categories of people for whom exercising can precipitate heart attacks. narrowing of aortic valve, if there are anomalies of heart circulation that means arteries of the heart are arising from wrong sinuses; electric irregularities of the heart can predispose a person to collapse after exercising. It’s best to get yourself evaluated before you take up heavy exercise. The issue of non-detection of heart ailments is a very serious one.

Over exercising and heart health: Signs to notice


Dr Mittal shares some signs one must not ignore:

If a person feels dizzy or light headed while exercising, you need to first get yourself evaluated.

If you are hypertensive (extreme hypertension), it is important to control your BP and then exercise

If you have a family history of a young person who had suddenly collapsed without warning, you may be carrying a gene which predisposes you to certain collapse so get ECG done

If you have chest discomfort, undue breathlessness, get yourself evaluated

Performance enhancing drugs can lead to cardiac irregularities and collapse and even heart attack

Heart disease is no more an ageing disease


Dr. Rajesh Thachathodiyl, Professor and Head, Department of Adult Cardiology, Amrita Hospitals, Kochi adds, “Earlier, heart attacks were known as an ageing disease and usually, people above the age of 60 were prone to it. But that scenario has been changing over the past years and now the more and more young population is falling prey to this. It is also true that even though you look very fit and healthy from the outside, inside your body there can be diseases arising which you are totally unaware of. Even in our OPD we see around 200 young patients in a month with cardiac issues. There are multiple factors that lead to cardiac arrests or heart attacks in the young population, the topmost being stress which triggers issues like- high blood pressure, cholesterol, insomnia, poor eating habits, and not following a healthy lifestyle. Before these work-from-home scenarios, most people use to travel to their offices and visit a lot of places, and hence body movement was active. After the pandemic struck, everyone’s active routine stopped and now this lethargic lifestyle is what youngsters are adapting by sitting the whole day in front of computers and then TVs. Also, when you have a family medical history of heart ailments you need to be extra careful with your lifestyle. Exercising and maintaining a healthy diet to a limit is good but beyond that, you need to be careful, rigorous exercises can be planned only after thorough cardiac examination. Advice would be to get regular health checkups done and know what is going inside your body and let the experts give suggestions, instead of you being your own master.

Regular screening is important


Incidentally, by the time symptoms of heart problems start to appear, the disease sometimes is already in an advanced stage. Dr Santosh Kumar Dora, Senior Cardiologist, Asian Heart Institute, Mumbai explains, “Exertional chest discomfort or breathlessness indicates possibility of heart problem and then further tests are needed to establish the cause. Periodic screening tests are needed to find out problems at an early stage, so that proper treatment may be given before significant damage to the heart happens. Common screening tests are ECG, 2D echocardiogram, stress test, CT scan for coronary calcium. Cardiac screening tests are advisable once a year or once in 2 years after the age 40 in the general population or after the age of 30 in the high risk population.”

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