Fifty-eight percent of Bajan women have heart disease

By Pedro Forte,
ISSA Certified Fitness Trainer
ISSA Certified Specialist in Exercise Therapy

Fifty-eight per cent of the women in Barbados have heart disease says Head of the Barbados’ Heart & Stroke Foundation Humphrey Mentzen who described the situation as “ a disgrace”.
Humphrey said that in 2014, 58% of Barbados’ women were diagnosed with some kind of heart disease which he described as “amazingly high” calling on all concerned to change their lifestyle, eat healthy, balanced diets and exercise to save their own lives.
Humphrey made his remarks while addressing The People’s Cathedral, a Pentecostal Church in Barbados, to commemorate 30 years of the existence of the Heart & Stroke Foundation.
To make matters worse, Humphrey said the widening waistlines and rise in obesity in children and young adults was also worrying and presented health care challenges for the children, young adults and women in Barbados who were presenting with non-communicable chronic diseases or NCDs.
Exercise
Humphrey was also adamant that exercise must be part of the daily life of any individual who wanted to keep heart disease away just as was the importance of not smoking, a balanced diet and lifestyle changes.
Recently, Dr. Anthony Harris, a renowned cardiologist and consultant cardiologist to Barbados’ lone hospital revealed the startling news that the island’s lobe public hospital experienced 3 strokes every two days and a minimum of 11 heart attacks per month.
Harris was also concerned about cerebral vascular accidents which he said posed the potential for irreversible brain damage to sufferers. The island is also known (like many other Caribbean nations) for its high NCDs including diabetes for which Barbados earned the dubious distinction of being called the “amputation capital of the world”, a label the Queen Elizabeth Hospital refutes while acknowledging the spiralling incidence of NCDS in adults and children alike.
Mentzen addressed the church gathering saying that the island must return to health eating patterns and exercise as the only solution to decreasing heart disease in Barbados.

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