SANTA CLARA, CA: The South Asian Heart Center’s (SAHC) fifth annual fundraiser, Scarlet Night 2013, was held on March 9, at the Santa Clara Convention Center and attended by over 850 guests. The popular event this year focused on increasing outreach, prevention, education and research of heart disease among South Asians who are at four times higher risk of heart disease than any other population.
The Gala’s targets were to raise funds through the auction and event ticket sales. The centre raised over $1.5 Million over five years with 1000 individual gifts, grants and corporate sponsorships. SAHC used about 63.3 percent of their proceedings towards preventive care, 11.2 percent for outreach, 7.3 percent on educating the physicians, 8.3 percent on research activities.
Dr. Cesar Molina, Medical Director of the SAHC, told India Post, “We don’t practice medicine, we help individuals develop very good lifestyle habits not only for themselves, but for their families to prevent heart disease. Vedic medicine or Ayurveda places great emphasis on daily and seasonal routines as a way of preventing disease or quelling danger before it arises.
He added, “One of our missions is to bring awareness of the condition and to educate individuals to decrease heart problems and diabetes. Now, we are moving into the realm of research. This is not only a local epidemic; it’s actually a global epidemic.”
One of the ways to improve heart health is to eat better and cook healthier meals at home. “Women are the ones who can prevent diabetes at home. It is producing concrete outcomes such as increased consumption of fruits and vegetables and minutes of weekly physical activity and this leads to decrease in risk factors including lower triglycerides level and improved cholesterol ratios” said Ashish Mathur, Executive Director of the SAHC.
“I think the SAHC is fantastic and I’m learning more about myself through the Center,” Council Member Ash Kalra told India Post.
Dr Sheena Iyengar, Keynote speaker of the evening is a renewed Columbia Business School professor and author of an award winning book, “The Art of Choosing”, about the mysteries of choice in everyday life. She spoke at length on how people make choices in their life and their effect. At a very young age she was diagnosed with retinal degeneration and had lost her sight by 11th grade. When she was just 13, her father died of a heart attack and she spoke on her dad’s choices. She urged the public to work on preventive measures to combat this deadly ailment.
“The center has helped me by showing what I should eat, what kind of exercises I should be doing, how I should manage my stress” said Nimish Mehta, CEO and Co-founder of LumenData.
Ro Khanna commended the SAHC group for their hard work by saying, “Addressing the unique medical needs of the community is very important and health disparity is something we should be paying attention to.”
The evening included connecting with friends, heart healthy hors d’oeuvres and a delectable dinner by “Turmeric” restaurant, and enthralling dancing by Mona Khan Company.
SAHC offers a comprehensive, culturally appropriate program incorporating wellness education, advanced screening, lifestyle change, case management and over 4,000 people have been screened at the center so far. The center has trained 161 physicians on practice methods for early diagnosis, comprehensive evaluation, and lifestyle changes.
SAHC has published posters and manuscripts in collaboration with UCSF and Stanford on topics raining from the prevalence of metabolic syndrome, adiposity and insulin resistance. SAHC has inspired several Bay Area restaurants and businesses in the food service industry to offer heart healthy options.
Vidya Sethuraman
India Post News Service
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