According to a research survey conducted by a private hospital in Charkop Naka, Malad, the incidence of heart ailments, heart diseases and cardiac problems among youth and those below 40 years in Malwani area has increased in the last few years. The research was carried out by Institute of Preventive Medicine, a department within Raksha hospital, Malad.
The trigger for the research, said the hospital, was around 200 cases it received every month related to the above ailments from people residing in these areas.
Amjad Khan, a resident of sector 6 in Malwani, Malad, was one such case. Khan was admitted in the hospital when he was 16 years old with a drug problem. While he used to snort thinners and would take drugs, for ten years he suffered from a severe heart disease. Khan suffered four minor heart attacks in the last one year. In order to study such cases and make people aware of the ailing health problems, the private hospital came up with the above mentioned research survey.
Dr Pranav Kabra, physician, and Chairman of the Preventive Medicine Institute said, "Over the last three years, there has been an exponential rise in cases of heart ailments. We wanted to study why this was happening. Through this, we want to make the residents aware of the unhealthy lifestyle that they are leading."
According to the doctors, abuse of drugs makes youth hyper-active and violent. They also tend to move towards crimes leading to murder and assault.
Dr Pankaj Singh, a physician at the hospital, said, "Due to the increasing abuse of drugs, the prevalence of heart diseases among the youth has increased over the last few years. Five years go, the hospital used to get around five to nine cases of heart diseases per month, which has now increased to 70 to 100 cases of cardiac and other heart ailment cases per month, 50 per cent of which are among the youth between the age of 25 to 45."
The research survey was conducted over a period of six months in which over 500 youth, with cases of heart problems, were examined to reach to the conclusions that drug abuse and smoking were the main reasons for the increase in their cardiac problems.
