Extreme cold may cause complications among cardiac patients

Rawalpindi

The extreme fall in temperature may cause serious and life threatening complications among patients who have cardiovascular diseases including coronary artery disease, heart attack (myocardial infarction), chest discomfort (angina), congestive heart failure (CHF), and or irregular heartbeat (arrhythmia) problems along with those who have had a diagnostic or therapeutic cardiac procedure.

The winter season has already set in and the mercury level is on the fall continuously for the last three weeks in this region of the country. According to health experts, patients with heart diseases, high blood pressure and other chronic diseases may face complications if they do not take extra care to avoid bad effects of extreme cold and chilly weather that is expected to be set in after a week or so.

Every year, the public and private sector healthcare facilities in the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi receive greater number of patients with cardiovascular diseases and their complications in extreme cold weather.

Health experts say that it is so because majority of our population is unaware of the bad effects of cold weather on health particularly the problems related to heart.

According to Medical Superintendent at Benazir Bhutto Hospital Dr. Asif Qadir Mir, a significant rise in number of patients with cardiac problems, hypertension and coronary heart disease with complications in extreme cold weather is witnessed mainly because most of these patients do not take change in weather as seriously as is needed.

He has explained that cardiac patients and patients with high blood pressure face problems in winter mainly because their bodies do not lose salts as happened in summer while most of these patients get inactive due to cold chilly weather.

He, like many other health experts said that in winter season, majority of patients gets physically inactive and do not follow a proper physical exercise including daily walk. It is important that being physically active is beneficial to your blood pressure, blood lipid levels, blood glucose levels, blood clotting factors, the health of blood vessels and inflammation.

He, however, said in winter, patients suffering from heart disease should not exercise in the morning or evening when the temperature falls to a significant level instead they should take walk at daytime, under the sun.

It is important that in extreme cold, vasoconstriction (the narrowing) of peripheral blood vessels may cause problems and patients with coronary heart disease should not come out of homes early in the morning with uncovered nose as it may affect their health badly.

It is worth mention here that Pakistani population has one of the highest risks of coronary heart disease (CHD) in the world. In Pakistan, 30 to 40 per cent of all deaths are due to cardiovascular diseases (CVD). The number of CHD deaths in Pakistan has reached about 200,000 per year that is 410/100,000 of the population. The CHD is now the leading cause of death in Pakistan.

Many health experts say that staying outside homes early in the morning and late at nights may cause irreversible losses to patients suffering from heart disease or any of the cardiovascular diseases and it may be more dangerous after a couple of weeks when the mercury would be touching zero degree Celsius.