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Paras Hospitals, Gurgaon Initiates ‘Our Health Our Heart’ Mini Marathon on World Heart Day

One of India’s leading kabaddi player; captain of Pro-Kabaddi League 2015 Winner U Mumba captain and Arjuna awardee Anup Kumar joins the marathon 

Hospital urges corporates, schools and organizations to promote running and exercise as part of daily life to benefit heart health

Arjuna award winning Indian kabaddi player and captain of U Mumba Pro-Kabaddi league team, Anup Kumar today joined Gurgaon’s citizens for a mini marathon as part of Paras Hospitals, Gurgaon’s initiative to promote the absolute importance of running, walking and exercising to fight the cardiovascular disease epidemic facing India.

The mini marathon saw active participation of a wide spectrum of people from school children, working professionals to the city’s elderly residents who ran across a 5.5 km stretch from Paras Hospitals, Gurgaon to HUDA City Centre and concluded at Paras hospitals.

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are the leading cause of deaths across the world, including India. While, the risk of acquiring CVD increases with age, unhealthy lifestyle factors such as  poor diet and lack of physical activity today are making relatively younger people prone to the disease.

Anup Kumar, the Arjuna awardee kabaddi player, who recently led U Mumba to a spectacular victory in the 2015 Pro Kabaddi League, joined the mini-marathon as Chief Guest. He advocated greater focus towards sports and physical activities in schools and colleges to improve public health.

“Physical sport is a great way of keeping oneself fit. Fitness is a habit that needs to be instilled in people right from their young age. I believe it is important that schools and colleges give more focus to sports for their students so that we not only reap more successful sportspersons but also a healthy generation of Indians,” said Anup Kumar.

Aimed at encouraging and motivating people to make heart health a focus, the “Our Health Our Heart” mini marathon is a special initiative by the hospital on World Heart Day. The effort aims to awaken people about the importance of healthy lifestyle in ensuring a long and productive life.

“While medical advancements have increased life expectancy of the world’s population, unfortunately our lifestyle shifts have curtailed this achievement by augmenting our risks for several diseases. Factors such as sedentary jobs, near total mechanization of work, heavy dependence on technology, unhealthy food habits, and highly stressful lives that include irregular sleeping patterns form the prime reasons for the surge in prevalence of heart disease today. The prevalence of this faulty lifestyle is higher in city like Gurgaon where the people live by deadlines. Long working hours, night jobs resulting in irregular sleep, excessive dependence on fast food, absence of any physical activity and high degree of stress are common factors today. We need to counter these negative factors by adopting positive modes of action such as regular physical exercise, running, jogging and walking every day. 30 minutes of exercise daily goes a long way in reducing our risk for several diseases including diabetes, hypertension and heart disease,” says Dr. Tapan Ghose, Director and HOD, Cardiology, Paras Hospitals, Gurgaon.

Starting at 7 am, the marathon covered a stretch of nearly 5.5 kms, with wide participation from corporate personnel, school and college children and other residents of Gurgaon, the mini marathon recorded an encouraging footfall of nearly 300 people from all age groups.

“Cardiovascular diseases are not only the world’s largest killer but also the silent ones. With no specific symptoms, CVD tends to develop slowly until they cause a heart attack or stroke all of a sudden one day. Factors such as hypertension, diabetes, stress or depression often increase the risk of developing CVD. Through a marathon we not only want to draw youngsters to the idea of exercise but also exhort the administration for creating exercise friendly environment in the city including clean and safe spaces to walk, run or cycle,” said Dr. Bharat Kukreti, Senior Consultant, Cardiology, Paras Hospitals, Gurgaon.

“The benefits that running brings to heart health are known to everybody. Running improves heart healthy by increasing blood circulation that further forces the heart to pump more blood. Likewise, not only the blood circulation improves but also the muscles of heart become strong and active. Running helps keep body weight in control, thus checking another risk factor for heart disease. It also helps reduce risk of high blood pressure and diabetes,”said Dr. Kuldeep Arora , Senior Consultant, Cardiology, Paras Hospitals, Gurgaon.