[BlueFreedom]

Originally Posted by AirbusCapt

Folks we need to step back and look at this objectively. The actor in question was deligient, commited to his fitness, took good care of his health. His family doctor said he had a normal blood pressure, regular cholesterol and other parameters.
On the other hand his family has had a long history of heart issues with one family member having serious issues at the age of just 23! His unfortunate demise I think is largely due to his genetic predisposition and nothing else.
Some folks are also comparing the maintanence of cars versus the human body, but a car is a machine. If you maintain it as per schedule, it will behave consistently. The human body doesn't not behave like that. You may do everything to take care of your health and yet you may suffer from all kinds of ailments where as a person abusing his body may live happily until 100.

+1000 this
Puneeth's untimely demise has left me and many of my friends and family members shell shocked. He was a fitness enthusiast a brand ambassador for TCS 10K and above all a very good human being. His built is not too muscular like most of the bollywood heroes who boast 6 or 8 packs.
All I could take away from this death is that no matter what you do to maintain your fitness its only a mitigation nothing GURANTEED. No doctor in the world can tell with 100% certainty that you will not experience cardiac arrest if you follow proper diet, a stress free life and a moderate exercise can they ?.
I will give up on this and say its fate and sadly there is no answer why this has happened.

[isandy]

Originally Posted by vivek95

Not much but I can only think of an Apple smartwatch here, which has apparently an inbuilt ECG app that might help to some extent in such cases. However ECG may be completely normal during initial few hours of chest pain ( with an underlying cardiac cause ). Had Puneeth visited the hospital at the first onset of his chest pain yesterday, his fate would have probably been different today. May his soul rest in peace.

-Dr. Vivek

As per this article he met his family physician and within short span of 15 min after ecg was family physician sent to a very good hospital, but was not able to be saved.

https://www.news18.com/news/movies/p...u-4383110.html

I am wondering if excess exercise or genetics at play here..or perhaps both.

Above all he seemed to be a nice human being who helped a lot, big loss to humanity indeed.

[vsrivatsa]

Originally Posted by isandy

As per this article he met his family physician and within short span of 15 min after ecg was family physician sent to a very good hospital, but was not able to be saved.

The full video interview is published as well on YT:

Dr. B. Ramana Rao Reveals 'What Happened To Puneeth Rajkumar Minutes Before Cardiac Arrest'

Dr Ramana Rao is a Padmashree Awardee as well: http://www.drramanarao.com/

He says its not a Heart Attack but a Cardiac Arrest...
Makes me wonder if Puneet had headed directly to a larger Hospital rather than a Clinic, would he have survived. But then saying all these things in retrospective is easy...

Guess the title of the thread needs to change from "Heart Attack" to "Cardiac Arrest" on the Home Page....

[COMMUTER]

I see many people point out genetics to be one of the causal factors of the spree of heart attacks. While I don't have proof to deny that, I would like to pitch in a more practical connection. I see that the slew of heart attacks or any other ailments can be put down to the family's food habits too. If they all eat in the same manner, they suffer the same problems because of that. I have lost two of my classmates in their thirties to heart attacks. I would say that the insulin resistance resulting in fatty liver which wears down the immunity and clogs the blood vessels to be the culprit in majority of the cases. I simply can't believe that it is just a gene that makes a healthy individual succumb suddenly.

[GTO]

Originally Posted by dailydriver

A point worth noting in this particular instance is of genetics. Puneeth's father, the thespian Dr. Rajkumar succumbed to heart attack in 2006 (but he had of course lived a full life). His brothers, Raghavendra Rajkumar and Shivarajkumar had suffered heart ailments - the former in his late 20s and the latter in his 50s. A detailed study of the family health history could perhaps throw some light on the issue.

This is my biggest weaknesses. I take a lot of care of myself in terms of sleep, food, exercise & minimal stress. But my Dad & all his brothers suffered from heart disease / attacks. So did Grand-Dad, and many on my Mum's side of the family. My Dad's youngest brother passed away at the age of 61 from a heart attack, while my Mom's brother did at 50 (a car guy, he owned a W126 & a Porsche 911). Dad had his first heart attack at 47.

Gujjus have really bad genes. Almost all my relatives who are 60+ are on a buffet-like spread of pills for cholesterol, diabetes, blood pressure etc.

[pandey.jai]

Originally Posted by vsrivatsa

He says its not a Heart Attack but a Cardiac Arrest...
Makes me wonder if Puneet had headed directly to a larger Hospital rather than a Clinic, would he have survived. But then saying all these things in retrospective is easy...

Guess the title of the thread needs to change from "Heart Attack" to "Cardiac Arrest" on the Home Page....

So if I understand this correctly, Cardiac Arrest implies the heart stops beating unexpectedly, perhaps without any obvious external triggering event?
If this is the case, then does a common man have any chance of surviving a cardiac arrest? I’m fairly certain common people don’t have access to an AED or medical help on hand or even within the first 30 minutes or so. Since time seems to be the key, I’m assuming all practical hope is lost in the event of a cardiac arrest.
Can someone please clarify if these assumptions are correct or are they way off the mark?

[windrider]

Originally Posted by GTO

Gujjus have really bad genes. Almost all my relatives who are 60+ are on a buffet-like spread of pills for cholesterol, diabetes, blood pressure etc.

I think its got more to do with the Gujarati lifestyle and eating habits. They are foodies and consume a lot of fat and sugar. Most gujjus I personally know are overweight, bordering on obese and are not really concerned about watching their weight. I think a lot of it has to do with your upbringing. When you grow up surrounding by overweight uncles, cousins and friends, being fat doesn't seem to affect you as much. I grew up with a lot of Gujarati friends in Oman. Most of us were touching 55-60 kgs by the time we were in 7th std and this is way back in 2002-03. I am certain things must be even worse now. Imagine my shock when I came back to kerala for my senior secondary studies, and I was the fattest kid in my class. But within 5-6 months of being back in kerala, i had lost almost 10 kgs just because of the change in my daily food habits. The pizzas, burgers and mountain dews of the middle east were replaced with idli, dosa and coconut water. Since then i have tried to maintain a reasonable weight and squeeze in atleast 20 to 30 mins of light excercise everyday. At 32, i am a healthy 67kgs and well within the BMI range for my height and age. Ofcourse there is nothing you can do about bad genetics.

[dailydriver]

Originally Posted by dailydriver

Which reminds of the noble gesture of Appu's family: his eyes have been harnessed by Narayana Nethralaya, just like his father's were.

Puneeth Rajkumar’s eye donation gives sight to four persons

The Hindu reports:

Doctors at Narayana Nethralaya, who collected the late actor’s corneas, said they sliced the corneas and transplanted them in four corneal blind patients...

What was unique is that we used each eye to treat two patients by separating the superior and deeper layers of the cornea.”

“The superior layer was transplanted to two patients, who had superficial corneal disease, and only the deeper layer was transplanted to patients with endothelial or deep corneal layer disease. Hence, we created four different transplants from two corneas to restore vision for four different patients. This had not been done in Karnataka so far, to the best of our knowledge,” Dr. Shetty said....

"Usually, two corneas from a deceased individual are transplanted into two corneal blind patients. But, we went out of our way to use Puneeth's corneal tissues to the maximum to honour the contributions made by his family," the doctor said.

The four patients — a woman and three men — are from Karnataka and are doing well after surgery...

Elaborating on the procedures, the doctor said two different techniques of lamellar keratoplasty were used. “Deep Anterior Lamellar Keratoplasty (DALK) – wherein the outer or superficial part of cornea was transplanted in two young patients with corneal dystrophy and keratoconus. Both these conditions affect predominantly the superficial layer of the cornea while the deeper part of the eye is normal. Hence, only the superior part was replaced and the endothelium of the patient was retained. This greatly reduces the chance of graft rejection,” Dr. Shetty explained.

“The second technique is – Descemet’s Stripping Endothelial Keratoplasty (DSEK) – wherein the inner or deeper layer of the cornea is transplanted in two patients with corneal endothelial decompensation affecting the innermost layer of the cornea. In this procedure, only the endothelium is replaced, and usually carried out with a small incision and a few sutures. This avoids full thickness cornea transplant, is more comfortable for the patient and allows faster recovery,” the doctor said.

“Besides this, the limbal rim (white part of the eye near the circumference of the cornea), which was not used for the transplants, has been sent to our laboratory to generate ‘Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells’ for potential use in patients with Limbal Stem Cell deficiency, chemical injuries, acid burns and other serious disorders,” he said.

PS: All emphases mine.

(@Moderators: I feel Puneeth's death needs a separate tribute thread, the title of which could lay emphasis on his eye donation too)

[mohit]

Just like cars, preemptive maintenance is the key here:

1. As you grow older, adjust your diet. We Indians tend to over eat. Even if the food is healthy, too much of it is going to cause fat build up in the body. Avoid eating late in the evening.
2. Move every day - walk, run, play, bike.... whatever floats your boat.
3. Track your blood pressure. Most people think they are fine but are living with elevated BP. Not a good thing when it comes to heart health.
4. If you have family history of cardiac ailments, talk to a cardiologist to assess if you need a TMT/Stress test. For 40 plus folks, it should be a part of your annual check up if there are any factors present that can cause heart ailments (Family history, Weight, BP, Cholesterol... ).
5. Most importantly, listen to your body - It might indicate if something is not right before things go south. Any cardiac pain/breathing difficulty when doing a moderate intensity activity should be taken very seriously even if it goes away after some time.

We tend to develop is a sense of reading issues with cars, computers, etc. but ignore our body. Please don't.

[sandeepmdas]

Originally Posted by AirbusCapt

Folks we need to step back and look at this objectively. The actor in question was deligient, commited to his fitness, took good care of his health..
...On the other hand his family has had a long history of heart issues with one family member having serious issues at the age of just 23!

Slightly OT: P Padmarajan, the great Malayalam movie director too was only 45 when he died, due to a sudden heart failure. Fact is, his two brothers (out of 4) too succumbed to the same disease. All three of them had met their fate despite taking all possible precautions.

[SN88]

Originally Posted by GTO

I used to run like a mad horse before I created this thread. Now, I take it easy on my body and do lighter jogging instead. I used to cycle very hard earlier to the point of becoming breathless; now, I do it at 10 - 20% lesser than my capacity. At the age of 44, I do cardio just for fitness & overall well-being, not to become an athlete or model.

Very sad to hear such stories. God bless his sweet soul.

My dad is 70 and runs/ walks approx 12-15 kms a day. He was always into fitness since his younger days. For him fitness was never about looking ripped but to feel good and energetic always.
His golden rule since decades has been it does not matter how fast you make your body go. What matters is how far you go. A person walking briskly for 10 kms is much better than running at a fast pace for 10 kms. Golden rule for maintaining fitness and NOT for weight loss is maintain a steady mid level heart rate , never high.

[dailydriver]

Yesterday, 17th March, was Punith’s birthday.

Fans worldwide celebrated it in a myriad of ways. A new movie - his last one - was released too.

Of the multitude of tributes, the following caught my attention:



(Mr. Kishore, an ardent fan, has the roof of his new car covered with a wrap depicting the late actor)

Source: Vishwavani

[aargee]

Originally Posted by GTO

Gujjus have really bad genes

Well, not sure you believe, but genes can be altered (in long term) through habits. So it's perfectly possible to even have a natural demise other than lifestyle death.

Originally Posted by GTO

Almost all my relatives who are 60+ are on a buffet-like spread of pills for cholesterol, diabetes, blood pressure etc.

Even if folks are physically fit, diet conscious & even having a good sleep, pumping too much of Cortisol & Adrenaline are known to cause artery blocks, increase cholesterol level. Some human bodies are naturally bound to increase LDL/HDL levels as well. So its only through conscious effort & practice this can be brought under control. And today it's much much easier to scan & keep ourselves healthy on all fronts.

But my point is to say, never, never, never, ever believe in the traditional beliefs!! I always remember 2 saying:
1. Jo dar gaya samjho woh mar gaya
2. Belief is Relief

So, our thoughts, habits & actions are related to the outcome of our life & it's a very slow process that we hardly observe until the body can take it no more.