Health: Maintaining heart health is crucial for your overall well-being. In this fast-paced world, people are burdened with stress and hectic lifestyles that can hurt their heart health. Over time this can heighten your risk of several cardiovascular problems like high blood pressure, angina, arrhythmia, high cholesterol levels, angina, coronary heart diseases, cardiomyopathy, heart valve disease, and heart failure. This is why it becomes essential to monitor your physical well-being, particularly heart health, to improve your health. Now, for World Heart Day 2024 which is on September 29, when we spoke to Dr Pankaj Pohekar, Cardiovascular & Thoracic Surgeon, at AIMS Hospital, he said that this can be achieved by regularly getting tested with several tests like an echocardiogram (ECG), stress test, lipid tests, and monitoring blood pressure. These may provide valuable insight into your health to take proactive measures and do the needful to ensure your safety.

Get these tests done to know more about your heart health.

Monitor your blood pressure: People with high blood pressure are at higher risk of experiencing heart disease, stroke, angina, and arrhythmia. Measuring your blood pressure is a simple test that helps you check the force and intensity of blood against the walls of your arteries. You can easily check your blood pressure in the comfort of your own house with the BP monitoring machine.

Lipid test: Also known as cholesterol levels test which is often done to measure the amount of fats present in your blood including bad cholesterol (LDL) and good cholesterol (HDL). High levels of bad cholesterol can significantly lead to a buildup of plaque in your arteries. Over time it can heighten your risk of several cardiovascular diseases.

Electrocardiogram (ECG or EKG): An ECG is a crucial test that records the electrical activities of your heart. This test helps detect a range of complications like irregular heartbeats, enlargement of the heart, or any type of severe damage to the heart highlighting the necessity to manage your heart health. One can identify several heart-related issues in the initial stage for timely intervention.

Stress Test: This test keeps you updated about how your heart performs its function while undergoing physical excretion. Individuals are asked to run on a treadmill while the doctors examine their heartbeats. In case of any hidden heart conditions, physical excretion may adversely affect the functioning of your heart.