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Times of India
16 April 2010
Bangalore, India

St John’s Centre Bags 5–Yr Project To Study Them
How Can you Avoid Cardio-Vascular Diseases?
Persons vulnerable to cardiovascular diseases can heave a sigh of relief soon. The Centre of Excellence at St John’s Medical College has taken up probably one of the biggest research projects to study and prevent the risk of such diseases.

The five–year research will deal with the best ways to prevent cardio–vascular diseases. In the first project, doctors will study 10,500 patients who are at risk in 70 cities across the country. The centre was officially launched on Thursday.

Three projects are planned under this programme. In the first one, 10,500 patients will be observed on how they are treated and how they take care after being discharged, to improve treatments for stroke.

The second one will study patients who had a stroke but fail to take medicines after discharge. This is to improve lifestyle and create awareness about medication.

The last aims at conducting national programmes to control risk factors that will reduce complications. For this, 20,000 individuals of three rural communities in Bangalore Rural, Sevagram (Maharashtra) and Annamalainagar (Puducherry) have been identified.

As a part of the programme, researchers will meet twice every year to share the information collected. Other members include doctors from Argentina, Bangladesh, China, Kenya, Peru, South Africa, Guatemala, Tunisia and the US–Mexico border.

Training for youths Breaking myths
“If I get a disease, I am to be blamed. It is about our lifestyle – what we eat and how we manage stress. I was surprised to see 500–600 persons being screened for surgeries at camps in Gulbarga and Raichur. I thought they at least had a better lifestyle,” observed E V Ramana Reddy, principal secretary, health and family welfare.

Cristina Rabadan–Diehl, Dr Richard Smith and Dr Arun Chockalingam – representatives from the Global Health initiative programme, United Health and National Heart and Lung Institute, respectively, were present. Breaking the myth that cardio–vascular diseases are not of the rich man or seniors, they said lifestyle is the culprit for the increasing number of heart patients. “We are what we eat”, they said.

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