Launch of two books on heart health

The Sinhala translations of two books focusing on heart health and originally written in English by Cardiologist Professor Rohan Jayasinghe was launched on Friday, November 25 at the Mahaweli Centre. 

Prof. Rohan Jayasinghe has a cardiology practice in Gold Coast in Australia. The original titles of the two books are ‘One Heart, One Life’ and ‘Ultimate Heart Health’. Their Sinhala translations are titled respectively ‘Ek hadaki ek jeewithayaki’ and ‘Upareema hadawath suwaya’. Prof. Jayasinghe’s brother Sanjay Jayasinghe, himself a doctor based in Sydney and their father, author Wadanambi Jayasinghe have co-authored ‘Upareema hadawath suwaya’. Queensland academic Piyasiri Karunathilake has authored ‘ek hadaki ek jeewithayaki’.  

These two books are valuable sources of reliable information that cover all aspects of cardiac disease. They also provide advice on healthy lifestyle practices to keep heart disease at bay. The Sinhala translations of the books make these valuable insights and knowledge accessible to local readers. Heart disease is a leading cause of death in both the developing and developed world. Today we are bombarded by information from across multiple sources on just about any subject and cardiac disease is no exception. The explosion of social media has exposed us to a constant stream of information that can influence behaviour. Filtering out the facts from myths for a majority of us could be a real challenge when exposed to this glut of information. In these two books, authors distil complex medical information and present it to the reader in easily digestible fashion. They also serve as common myth busters of heart health.  

In ‘ek hadaki ek jeewithaki’ the authors first describe the make-up of the human heart and its functions. It also describes the common ailments of the heart. The books also explain the symptoms and methods of the diagnosis of heart ailments. The detailed accounts of tests doctors order to check ones heart is particularly useful for persons with heart disease and their families. There are well-documented factors that increases a person’s likelihood of getting heart and vascular ailments such as heart attacks (myocardial infarction), high-blood pressure (hypertension) and stroke (cerebro-vascular accident). 

Some of these risk factors could be mitigated by a healthy lifestyle including regular exercise and good dietary habits. The books provide detailed descriptions of practical steps to follow to achieve these results.