Speaker 1: Now, Health Matters with Daniel Martin. Welcome back to Health
Speaker 1: Matters right here on CNN 938, the heart attack. It's
Speaker 1: a four part series. This is the final of four
Speaker 1: episodes inspired by the loss of a dear friend and
Speaker 1: colleague Chakan, who was an executive producer and director
Speaker 1: on the body and soul TV series in a long
Speaker 1: time employee here at Media Corp. He recently passed at
Speaker 1: the age of 51 from a very sudden heart attack.
Speaker 1: He loved the body and soul series. I've spoken to
Speaker 1: his wife and told her that I'll be doing this series.
Speaker 1: I sent out a form to colleagues at Media Corp
Speaker 1: and friends of Shaan's to crowdsource for questions because I
Speaker 1: know many people had questions about like, how can this happen?
Speaker 1: How could it happen to somebody so suddenly at that
Speaker 1: young age as well,
Speaker 1: I couldn't talk about this with anybody else except Professor
Speaker 1: Carolyn Lam, who of course was my co-host on the
Speaker 1: series for eight of the nine seasons. Professor Lam is
Speaker 1: senior consultant, National Heart Center Singapore and Professor Duke Nu.
Speaker 1: And like I said, pretty much, the fifth person that
Speaker 1: came in on the series. Do you remember? Let's see.
Speaker 1: Let's go back to our memories. You came in for
Speaker 1: a screen test with me to see, to see if
Speaker 1: there was a, it was a chemistry read.
Speaker 1: She was in the room. I know Daisy and Yvonne
Speaker 1: was she in the room? I can't
Speaker 2: remember. For goodness sakes. I was too nervous to remember
Speaker 2: who was in the room. All I know is that
Speaker 2: we went off script immediately,
Speaker 1: immediately
Speaker 1: through the script out of the window. And because I'd
Speaker 1: interviewed you prior on my radio show as well, I
Speaker 1: had submitted a list of doctors who could do it
Speaker 1: and we took chemistry reads. And I remember talking with
Speaker 1: our team including Shaan about who would be a best fit.
Speaker 1: And I remember Shaan simply just saying
Speaker 1: that one can
Speaker 1: honestly
Speaker 2: though Daniel, I mean, in all seriousness. Thank you. It's
Speaker 2: been one of the greatest privileges and pleasures in my
Speaker 2: life to have done that with you and with Shean,
Speaker 2: I've learned so much so so
Speaker 1: like communicating these important messages, right? But that's high praise
Speaker 1: from Shean. That one. Can
Speaker 1: I love that? That's high praise.
Speaker 2: I miss you.
Speaker 1: Yes, indeed. That's why we're doing the series. And let's
Speaker 1: address many of the questions that his friends and colleagues
Speaker 1: sent across to me. Somebody asked a stroke associated with
Speaker 1: a heart attack.
Speaker 2: Oh,
Speaker 2: good question. Yes. So the underlying mechanism of a stroke
Speaker 2: is the same as a heart attack in a stroke,
Speaker 2: what happens is the blood vessel
Speaker 2: dying, nutrients and oxygen to the brain gets blocked and
Speaker 2: then part of the brain dies. And so that is
Speaker 2: a stroke. So exactly. So in the heart, a heart
Speaker 2: attack is when the blood supply supply nutrients and oxygen
Speaker 2: to the heart muscle gets blocked and then that part
Speaker 2: of the heart dies. So heart attack is stroke or
Speaker 2: brain attack can be considered a stroke.
Speaker 1: Another question says I've been told that I have X
Speaker 1: percent blockage. They didn't reveal the, how many percent X
Speaker 1: percent blockage. And I don't need to do anything until
Speaker 1: it gets to a greater percentage. 60% or 70%. Is
Speaker 1: that true?
Speaker 2: So, yes, it is true that if you've got only
Speaker 2: minor blockages that you don't have to do anything in
Speaker 2: the sense of what we call interventions, coronary intervention, a balloon. Exactly.
Speaker 2: But I don't want to get too technical there because
Speaker 2: there is plenty that you need to do once you
Speaker 2: know that you've got some blockages, which is
Speaker 2: now is the time to reverse your risk. Now is
Speaker 2: the time to really know what your blood pressure, cholesterol sugar,
Speaker 2: stop smoking, uh, employ a healthy lifestyle, get your weight
Speaker 2: to a good level, become physically active. Now is the
Speaker 2: time that before it gets worse blockage, you can reverse
Speaker 2: it with all these measures of healthy lifestyle as well
Speaker 2: as medications to control cholesterol, blood pressure diabetes.
Speaker 1: Another question that came in actually more than one person
Speaker 1: asked this. I'll take this phrasing of the question. 51
Speaker 1: seems like a very young age to die of a
Speaker 1: heart attack. Is that the normal risky age?
Speaker 2: It is young. Sadly. And our 2020 statistics in Singapore
Speaker 2: show that the mean age of a heart attack was
Speaker 2: about 70 years old. However, please, everyone out there, even
Speaker 2: young people can be at risk. If you've been dealt
Speaker 2: with the bad cards of genetics, with high cholesterol,
Speaker 2: you could have had a high cholesterol since your twenties.
Speaker 2: So that would already put you at risk by the
Speaker 2: time you're 40 you exactly of build up of the cholesterol.
Speaker 2: So everyone needs to be aware of the potential risk.
Speaker 2: If you've got early symptoms, please seek medical attention
Speaker 2: and then know your numbers. You know, remember that you
Speaker 2: will not feel it if you've got high cholesterol. For example,
Speaker 2: you need to measure it to know it. Speaking
Speaker 1: of knowing your numbers, at least two people ask is
Speaker 1: relying on our annual health screening enough.
Speaker 2: Well, yes, annual health screening uh for an average person
Speaker 2: would include, I think all the lipids and um, lipids,
Speaker 2: which is cholesterol as well as diabetes screen,
Speaker 1: right?
Speaker 2: No, that's looking for the risk factors though. And that
Speaker 2: is a very, very good place to start. Now, that
Speaker 2: would be sufficient for the average. That's why we call
Speaker 2: it screening, right? Because it's mass
Speaker 2: screening. However, if you've got particular risk factors, like a
Speaker 2: family history of early heart attacks, if you already know
Speaker 2: that you've got some of the risk factors and you're
Speaker 2: having symptoms, all that means you cannot just go for
Speaker 2: the annual screen. Don't wait, please go and see a
Speaker 2: doctor and get that running stress tests or even ac
Speaker 2: T coronary angiogram, for example, and have a look at
Speaker 2: the heart arteries.
Speaker 1: Another common question that came in,
Speaker 1: is there a link between a heart attack and the
Speaker 1: COVID vaccine or our experience with having COVID?
Speaker 2: Oh, this is a very, very may I say inflammatory topic, wasn't?
Speaker 2: It
Speaker 1: shows on this many shows.
Speaker 2: Yes. Ah, this reminds me of our chat with the statins.
Speaker 2: You know, you can find anything you want when you
Speaker 2: look out in the internet about stuff. So here's what
Speaker 2: we do know. Yes, there is a small risk of myocarditis,
Speaker 2: especially in
Speaker 2: younger men with the vaccine. Myocarditis is not a heart attack.
Speaker 2: Myocarditis is when the heart muscle is a little bit inflamed. Ok.
Speaker 2: So that's not a heart attack, which is the blood
Speaker 2: vessel becoming blocked, right? So please don't mix everything up.
Speaker 2: Remember that heart attack can occur without a COVID vaccine.
Speaker 2: Now about the question of whether having COVID can precipitate
Speaker 2: a heart attack,
Speaker 2: I have to say that we are not very, very
Speaker 2: clear what makes the heart attack suddenly happen on top
Speaker 2: of a heart artery that's been building cholesterol over months
Speaker 2: or years
Speaker 1: because I remember in episode one, you said something acutely
Speaker 1: can happen like an infection that could lead to that
Speaker 2: collapse. Exactly. And that's where I was going to get that. Yes.
Speaker 2: A flu
Speaker 2: doesn't need to be COVID. Specifically any sort of inflammation,
Speaker 2: stress response, sudden physical exertion. Yes, including COVID, but including
Speaker 2: COVID among many other infections, influenza pneumonia can precipitate unhealthy
Speaker 2: rupture of that, that heart artery, all
Speaker 1: the more reason not to get the flu or COVID.
Speaker 2: Yes. And that's why we get
Speaker 1: vaccine. Yes, indeed. Thanks for that question as well. Uh
Speaker 1: We had quite a few questions. Our dear friend Shukan
Speaker 1: did die in his home. Unfortunately, and I was looking
Speaker 1: at some of the the articles written about where heart
Speaker 1: attacks are more likely to happen
Speaker 1: and it talks about the home and surprisingly, the office
Speaker 1: as a common location as well. How is somebody supposed
Speaker 1: to respond? Well, some of the questions when they see
Speaker 1: somebody experiencing a heart attack, what is your advice
Speaker 2: immediately? Call the ambulance?
Speaker 2: 995. Ok. So if there's one message you get, call
Speaker 2: the ambulance and then we have a little bit of
Speaker 2: a saying when it comes to medical, we say mona
Speaker 2: greets a heart attack. Mona is acronym mon A for morphine,
Speaker 2: oxygen nitrates aspirin. So that's what happens when the patient
Speaker 2: reaches the hospital. We try to get these things to
Speaker 2: the patient to try to quickly repro fuse the heart muscle,
Speaker 2: but just remember
Speaker 2: time is muscle.
Speaker 2: So get the ambulance there immediately. And if you know
Speaker 2: CPR and if the patient has gone unconscious and you
Speaker 2: cannot feel the pulse not breathing, please perform CPR.
Speaker 1: How
Speaker 1: do you know it's a heart attack? Do you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? Like, it's a scary experience. You might
Speaker 1: think that maybe the person is just fainted or maybe
Speaker 1: they're having. But there are telltale signs though, right? That
Speaker 1: you know that this person is probably having a heart attack.
Speaker 2: Well, there is the typical, you know, hunching over and,
Speaker 2: and they're clutching their chest, they're going very cold and
Speaker 2: clammy and pain on the arm. Yes, it could also
Speaker 2: be a pain in the arm that radiates to the
Speaker 2: left arm is usually what we call. But central chest
Speaker 2: radiating to left arm and then because the heart beat
Speaker 2: can become irregular as it is dying.
Speaker 2: The patient can then lose consciousness because the heart's not
Speaker 2: pumping enough blood to reach the brain. So it, it
Speaker 2: can be a heart attack. But listen, when you see
Speaker 2: someone collapse, you're not sure what it is and you
Speaker 2: cannot feel a pulse and the patient is not breathing.
Speaker 2: The treatment is the same. Do CPR immediately and call
Speaker 2: the ambulance,
Speaker 1: they're trying to
Speaker 1: keep the heart pumping.
Speaker 2: Exactly. You're keeping the circulation going until the definitive treatment
Speaker 2: can be done, which is either we need to restore
Speaker 2: the electrical rhythm or we need to give mona and
Speaker 2: bring the patient to a Cath lab and do a
Speaker 2: coronary intervention. But in the meantime, it is so critical
Speaker 2: if you can be trained in CPR
Speaker 2: and know how to do it properly, that can save
Speaker 2: lives
Speaker 1: on that message, Professor Lam, I could not have done
Speaker 1: this without you. Thank you for helping us over these
Speaker 1: four episodes. Really, really talk in depth about the things
Speaker 1: that every man can do.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you for the privilege and, and as I said,
Speaker 2: for the privilege of doing this in memory and honor
Speaker 2: of
Speaker 1: Shaan. That's exactly what it is all about. Our colleague
Speaker 1: succumbed to a heart attack at the age of 51.
Speaker 1: Very recently, he helped Professor Lam and myself um from
Speaker 1: day one on Body and Soul, the TV series that
Speaker 1: started way back in 2013. He directed pretty much every
Speaker 1: episode and it was a long time employee here at
Speaker 1: Media Corp. He leaves behind his lovely wife and the
Speaker 1: darling young daughter as well.
Speaker 1: That's why we were inspired. He loved body and soul
Speaker 1: so much, loved it and, and I know that he
Speaker 1: would want to help other people understand one of the
Speaker 1: most common health conditions in Singapore that he sadly did
Speaker 1: succumb to and that is the heart attack. I'm Daniel Martin.
Speaker 1: And this has been health matters here on CN 8938
Speaker 1: before making any decisions based on the information in our program,
Speaker 1: please consult a medical professional.