How does our way of dealing with stress relate to heart disease?
Stress is an area which is very difficult to quantify, unlike diabetes or cholesterol or blood pressure. There has been a very big study called as ‘Inter Heart study’ where they say that stress, or ‘psycho-social’ factors play a very important role in the development of heart disease. How or how much, we cannot really say. Another thing is stress is present in everyone’s life, especially in urban setting; like being stuck in traffic. It is about how we deal with it. Some people really react to it negatively while some people deal with it calmly. How are genetics related to heart disease? Genetics or family risk for heart disease is a potent risk factor. How much would they affect, it is difficult to say. Some people’s genes are so ‘bad’ they may get it no matter what but there is a difference. If they take all the care, they may get an attack at 60, that too, a mild one than getting a fatal attack at 45. So it is not that if your genes are bad, you are doomed, there are a lot of other
