At the Heart and Stroke Foundation South Africa (HSFSA), the month of February is a celebration of good heart and brain health.
The month is used to increase awareness and raise funds to help sustain the work streams for health promotion, disease prevention, health advocacy, health education and community-based outreach.
Also read: Understanding diabetes with The Heart and Stroke Foundation
Consequently, love is not only associated with the heart but also the brain. There has been an increase in scientific evidence over the years, which also illustrates the relationship between good gut health and good brain health.
The foundation has consistently conveyed a health message related to good nutrition and cardiovascular disease.
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More on the gut-brain connection: The gut microbiota is in constant interaction with the human host; it represents an ecosystem vulnerable to influences from the environment.
Over the years, the brain-gut axis concept has evolved and illustrated connections to both the nervous system pathways as well as hormonal pathways and internal brain connections that exist between cognitive and emotional functions. The central nervous system and the gut are physiologically unable to be dissociated.
The neural structures present at and linking both sites are similar. The significance of the brain-gut axis is best seen as ‘a team’. Both systems are physiologically coordinated to ensure a healthy status. It is due to these connections that stressful life events can influence gut-brain signalling and cause alterations in meal tolerance, intestinal dysfunction, cognitive and task performance.
This gut-brain connection helps explain the effectiveness of irritable bowel syndrome and bowel disorder treatments such as antidepressants, as well as mind-body therapies like cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and medical hypnotherapy. Specialists have gone as far as to state that ‘Our two brains “talk” to each other, so therapies that help one may help the other.’
At the global and South African levels, statistics highlight the burden of CVD. Cardiovascular and cerebrovascular conditions (CVD), are the leading causes of death and disability within the non-communicable disease cluster in South Africa. CVD is responsible for almost one (1) in six (6) deaths, claiming more lives than all cancers combined. Every day, 225 South Africans die from heart disease and strokes.
The foundation plays a pivotal role in educating South Africans from all walks of life, including our family, friends and colleagues, about adopting healthier behaviours. To meet its mission, the foundation has several outreach programmes, which include: The Mended Hearts and Stroke Groups, School Health Promotion Initiative (SHPI), Fast Heroes for Stroke Prevention, and Health Risk Assessments (HRAs).
To help with easier food choices, the Heart Mark Endorsement Programme is a very important part of the foundation’s nutrition pillar.
Each programme is tailored to the target group. Prevention is always better than cure and we could just as easily lose our workforce due to heart disease or strokes as to any other disease. Workplace wellness programmes aim to prevent chronic diseases and improve the productivity of employees. Such programmes allow the employees to view the access to and provision of wellness programmes as a sign of commitment to health and well-being from the employer’s perspective.
The foundation extends the health promotion programmes to the private sector at a cost.
Highlighting the Heart Mark endorsement programme, a flagship of the Foundation, which forms part of a health-enabling environment, offers consumers a tool that makes choosing healthier foods easier. The Heart Mark logo helps consumers identify healthier food options and, at the same time, advocates against food manufacturers that flood the market with unhealthy products that contribute substantially to the rise in non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, overweight and obesity.
The foundation encourages everyone to show genuine love to their nearest and dearest friends and colleagues by empowering them and giving them the tools to be present and healthy, urging individuals and companies to work alongside the foundation and help amplify the impact of the HSFSAs programmes.
As a non-profit health organisation, the HSFSA relies on donor funding to meet its sustainability needs, continue the work for many more decades to come and reach new frontiers through its invaluable work and data collection.
You can make a difference and show your healthy heart love to those around you by donating at: https://www.heartfoundation.co.za/donate/
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Also read:
DASH: The Heart and Stroke Foundation’s new cookbook for heart health
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