Now you can know your vascular age to avoid heart ailment

                                                                   Vascular Age Calculator

By Vikas Vaidya

In India it is estimated that over 220 million people have been diagnosed with one or more forms of Cardiovascular disease (CVD). But 2025 this number is expected to nearly double. CVD is one of the leading causes of death in India. In 2005, 29% of the deaths in India were due to CVD. Can we avoid this or can we know earlier how much damages have been occurred internally so that we could avoid it or take precautions to avoid further damages. Such system has come through which we can know our Cardiovascular age.
If suppose your age is 40 years, your cardiovascular age may be 60 or even 80. How? Dr Rajesh Mundhada of Pulse Clinic, Dhantoli said, “Heart is the pump of the body which pumps the oxygenated blood to each and every part of the body by arteries. With every pulsation there is change in the diameter of an artery in response to distending pressure, and pulse wave velocity (PWV). The normal arteries are soft and distensible. With increasing age inner wall of the arteries gets hardened, which makes arteries stiff and less distensible.  And in stiff vessels the pulse wave velocities increases. This means with increasing body age the arteries also get older. Thus normally body age should correspond to arterial age. And pulse wave velocity (PWV) is a good modality for calculating the arterial age.”   
Dr Atul Rewatkar, also of Pulse Clinic pointed, “Diseases causing increased hardening of arteries (arteriosclerosis) include Atherosclerosis- thickening of arteries due to cholesterol deposition, arteritis- inflammation of arterial walls,
diabetes mellitus, increased blood pressure, kidney diseases etc.”
Arteriosclerosis causes blockage of arteries which eventually decreases the blood supply to the target organ. Decreased supply to legs causes leg attack, similarly decreased supply to brain causes stroke and to heart causes heart attack. Atherosclerosis being most common, once started, involves nearly all arteries of body in varying intensities, means some arteries may be severely involved and some may be less involved. Hence as the age progresses, atherosclerosis is considered to be a major contributor of disability and death. Grading atherosclerosis as per its effect on the arteries can give us a major clue for crippling vascular disease running in the body.  
Being an exclusive interventional hospital of the country, Pulse Clinic and Hospital has added another  feather to its cap by having a latest, state of art equipment which calculates vascular age of the body . This machine non-invasively, calculates the arterial pressure and stiffness in coordination with heart along with phonocardiography and ECG monitoring.
“This machine can also diagnose vascular disease of varying severity which in turn helps not only in early prediction of on-going arterial disease but also in further management of advanced arterial diseases.  High end software and technology using brachial ankle pulse wave velocity gives actual vascular age of a person which can easily becompared with the existing chronological age. The associated co-morbidies like hypertension, diabetes, obesity etc are also taken into consideration while calculating the final vascular age, said Dr. Atul Rewatkar. Vascular age can be kept under control with healthy life style, regular excercises and proper dietary habits,said  Dr. Rajesh Mundhada.
Dr Sanjay Tambe, who also possesses it at hie Saidham Aarogya Santulan Kendra at Pratapnagar said, “Physical activity, stress reduction, promoting healthy liver function, fixed meal timings, sleeping well, promoting Vitamin D intake can improve the heart functioning.”