It’s been almost a decade since I last step into a lecture hall. The last time I was in a lecture hall was during my final exam in university. I never knew that I’ll be saying this, but I really do miss my college years.

Lucky me, I was given a chance to relive my notorious college years a few days ago. UMMC Cardiology Unit was having a ‘Love Your Heart Day’ Public Talk a couple of days ago and a bunch of us bloggers were invited to check it out.

After the registration, the public and invited media alike were ushered into a huge lecture hall. The talk kicks off with recital of prayers by Dr. Syadi and speech by the Head of Cardiology Unit, Prof Dr. Wan Azman. His speech was then followed by the official launch of the public talk and the announcement for “Love Your Heart’ Survey. The survey sought to shed light on cardiac risk factors and treatment options as well as patients’ understanding on these issues.

According to the ‘Love Your Heart Survey’, a total of 328 respondent, or 80% had not even performed regular health test before they had been diagnosed with Coronory Heart Diseases.

Remember a few days ago I posted the picture for my Wordless Wednesday Entry with a caption “Do You Love ‘ME'”? Well that was 2013’s World Heart Day campaign poster. 😀

The World Heart Day is celebrated on 29th September and will highlight a life-course approach to the prevention and control of Coronory Heart Disease with a focus on women and children and show what actions can be taken through a person’s life to reduce their risk of Coronory Heart Disease.

You can keep a tab on updates and whatnot on the campaign on various social media with the hashtag #worldheartday. The entire campaign emphasized on preventing the future impact of heart disease and stroke by enabling heart-healthy living from childhood throughout adulthood because healthy children lead to healthy adults and healthy adults lead to healthy families and communities.

Us media were then ushered to the media room for press conference and we were given a chance to listen to lectures first hand. Here’s a picture of Prof Dr. Wan Azman, demonstrating the mechanics of the human heart.

According to the good doc, Coronory Heart Disease can affect people of all ages and population groups, including women and children. However, their risk can be controlled, treated or modified through everyday heart-healthy behaviours, such as eating a healthy diet, taking regular exercise and avoiding tobacco use.

Did you know? Heart disease is actually the number one killer of women, causing 1 in 3 female deaths: shockingly, that’s about one death per minute! It is vital that women learn the truth about their cardiovascular disease risk and take action to protect themselves and their family. Children are vulnerable too: the risk for cardiovascular disease can begin before birth during foetal development, and increase further during childhood with exposure to unhealthy diets, lack of exercise and smoking.

SIGH. It’s all about lifestyle. Modern society can expose children to risk factors such as diets with too few calories, diets high in “bad” fats and sugar; activities such as computer games that discourage physical activity; and in some countries, tobacco advertising that encourages tobacco use or environments filled with secondhand tobacco smoke.

There’s plenty of things that were taught during the lecture, but the infographic above practically sums it up. 😀 Do take some time to take a look at it, folks. It will do you good, I reckon.

After the lecture, I took some time to take a look at the exhibition hall and discovered first hand that UMMC was also providing free consultation and health check to the public in conjunction of World Heart Day 2013.

Free consultation from the nutritionist

The public taking advantage of the free health check session.

Getting health check done. After lurking around in the health check booths, I decided that I haven’t had enough and explored further. There are plenty of exhibit items that day. Check out the pictures below. They’re rich with infos.

Exhibit item 1

Exhibit item 2

Exhibit item 3

Exhibit item 4

Exhibit item 6

Exhibit item 7

Exhibit item 8

The one thing in the exhibition hall that caught my attention is the Coronory Heart Bypass surgery and stents that’s used in the procedure.

A stent is a small mesh tube that’s used to treat narrow or weak arteries. Arteries are blood vessels that carry blood away from your heart to other parts of your body.

A stent is placed in an artery as part of a procedure called angioplasty. Angioplasty restores blood flow through narrow or blocked arteries. A stent helps support the inner wall of the artery in the months or years after angioplasty.

Doctors also may place stents in weak arteries to improve blood flow and help prevent the arteries from bursting.

Stents usually are made of metal mesh, but sometimes they’re made of fabric. Fabric stents, also called stent grafts, are used in larger arteries.

A closer look at a stent.I was informed that some stents are coated with medicine that is slowly and continuously released into the artery. These stents are called drug-eluting stents. The medicine helps prevent the artery from becoming blocked again. According to Prof Dr. Wan Azman, these are a cutting edge technology in medical science and many has benefit from the procedures, but of course, prevention is always better than cure.

We bloggers certainly had a field day learning the matters of the heart, that day. 😀 Here’s one for the album.

Need more info on World Heart Day 2013, ‘Love Your Heart’ Survey results, angioplasty& stents usage, public talks and etc? Well, hop over to https://www.ummc.edu.my/ for more info.

Cleffairy: I’m all for healthy living and taking care of my heart, and I’m sure all of you out there share the same sentiment too.