Basketball and Heart Health with Dr. Manesh Patel
February is American Heart Month, so this week, we sat down with Swish House Advisory Board member, Dr. Manesh Patel. Dr. Patel is Chief of the Division of Cardiology & Co-Director of the Heart Center at Duke University. He is also Chair of the American Heart Association Diagnostic and Interventional Cath Committee.
Manesh, tell us how you found out about Swish House, and what piqued your interest in the business?
I met Swish House’s CEO, Jonathon Dues at The Joel Cornette Foundation’s annual golf outing in Cincinnati back in 2021. Our mutual friend/ESPN guy, Jordan Cornette & his family’s foundation had just partnered with Duke Health on The Heart of Athletes Study. Its purpose was to better understand how to evaluate the hearts of athletes in the context of COVID-19 and to understand the long-term implications. It also created a platform for Athlete’s Hearts Imaging – for cardiovascular conditions that may put them at risk for sudden cardiac death and other events. Jonathon and I got to talking about the study at the event, and when I learned about Swish House’s mission, it seemed like something I’d be passionate about and a great way to help a lot of people.
Why did you join Swish House’s advisory board?
First and foremost, I absolutely love basketball. I live in Raleigh-Durham, which is basketball country, and I’ve been fortunate enough to work with our cardiology and sports medicine teams that support Duke Athletics and Duke Basketball. What intrigued me the most about Swish House was the plan to reach underserved communities across the U.S. Swish House is opening a full service location at Intentional Sports in Chicago’s North Austin neighborhood. As we establish our roots there, we plan to implement accessible heart health education and screening programs for local residents. Plus, we can facilitate affordable, accessible basketball fitness memberships to local residents who love hoops.
What is the fastest way to improve heart health and how does the Swish House Basketball Fitness Class experience support these methodologies?
Activity is one of the most critical things around heart health. We know that people that have regular activity – and ideally activity that raises their heart rate and makes them do consistent activity helps with long-term fitness, reduces their risk for heart disease, and most importantly leads to well being. I have found for my patients, that most importantly – the activity has to be fun. This often includes some components of social structure, challenges, and engagement with friends. Basketball does all of these and hopefully whether it’s simple to complex skills or games – all types of people in the community can get out and move.
How does failing to maintain a consistently active lifestyle by, for example, playing basketball several times a week, negatively affect heart health and increase risk factors associated with heart disease and stroke?
We know that cardiovascular disease in the traditional sense is a disease of vascular atherosclerosis – or plaque building up over time in your arteries. This happens from lipid accumulation due to diet, genetics, and chronic conditions like diabetes and high blood pressure. Regular activity such as basketball that leads to ideal body weight can prevent heart disease and often lead to less requirement for medications to treat those conditions.
Our mission at Swish House is to help millions of people become happier and healthier by giving them new, unique and convenient ways to play basketball and get in shape. Why is it so important right now to help people across all walks of life become healthier?
We have learned over the last several years that cardiovascular disease is not only the leading cause of death and disability by causing heart attacks, stroke, and heart failure, but that the rates of these events in the United States are going up. This is likely due to worsening overall ability for people in communities to get access to healthy foods and activity. One of the best ways to get all generations of people in our communities to improve their health is to increase their activity levels. In the US and worldwide, basketball provides one of the best ways to engage in fun low cost exercise, exercise that is interactive, exercise that can be low to high intensity, and exercise that can be tailored to each person's ability. For me, the exciting thing about being a champion of Swish House is the opportunity to lead to equitable health through activity in our country.