Sedentary lifestyle is a cause for weight gain, blood pressure changes, high sugar levels and pulmonary embolism, says Dr Amit Malik
The pandemic had left everyone cooped up in their homes. With work from home becoming the new normal, the long sitting hours without any physical activity has given rise to multiple health issues.
While not all must have been bad during the pandemic and work from home scenario, but the worst is the ill effects of a sedentary lifestyle.
Dr Amit Malik, Associate Director and Coordinator, Interventional Cardiology, Electrophysiology tells you that a sedentary lifestyle, especially during a pandemic can lead to pulmonary embolism and other serious diseases.
Sedentary lifestyle, he says, is a type of lifestyle that doesn’t involve physical activity. A person involved in this is either always sitting around or lying down. Because of the pandemic, the shift of all day-to-day activities online and work from home, this has been the lifestyle of most people. This has reduced the day-to-day mobility. Before the pandemic, even if people did not designate time to physical exercise, they still moved around. “Sedentary lifestyle is a cause for weight gain, blood pressure changes, high sugar, deep vein thrombosis and various other things which are risk factors for several diseases,” Malik says.
The worst of all is Pulmonary embolism. It is a condition in which blood vessels in lungs are blocked by a blood clot. “Pulmonary embolism is a very fatal and catastrophic condition which can be difficult to diagnose. Some of its symptoms are sudden shortness of breath, chest pain, leg swelling and low oxygen saturation. If someone notices these symptoms, they should get themselves checked immediately,” Malik says.
The clots form in the legs of the person and then travel through blood to reach the right chamber of the heart and then into the pulmonary artery. Depending on the size of the clot, the smaller branches of pulmonary arteries or major artery can be blocked. Apart from pulmonary embolism, embolism can also occur in other important organs like brain and heart and cause fatal problems or death of the person.
“To prevent this people should avoid sitting in the same position for long hours, take a gap after every 45 to 60 minutes and stretch, jump, or walk around the house. Keep oneself hydrated and have a healthy diet. Prevention and prompt diagnosis are important. For treatment, blood thinner or clot dissolving agents are used depending on the clot burden to remove the clot and unblock the blood vessels,” he tells you.
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