Each year, an estimated 35,000 cardiac arrests and 62,000 strokes occur in Canada. It’s estimated that heart disease, stroke and related conditions take a life every 5 minutes. Approximately 1.6 million Canadians are living with heart disease and stroke. Much of the cause of these staggering numbers is related to lifestyle.
According to Heart & Stroke Canada prevention is the key. In addition to the early detection and management of medical conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol you can also adopt healthy lifestyle changes to help reduce your risk of heart disease. The heart beats about 2.5 billion times over the average lifetime, pushing millions of gallons of blood to every part of the body. It’s the most important muscle in the body and yet, in spite of the fact that 80% of premature heart disease and stroke is preventable, many of us don’t know enough about the risk factors, causes, signs and nature of heart disease.
So today we welcome Opal Desmarais, Senior Manager of Health Systems, Heart & Stroke, Rodolfo Pike, a Nurse Practitioner, Eastern Health and Linda Green who is living with heart failure. They will teach us about heart health, the risk factors, prevention, heart failure and more from those on the front line.