The Channel 4 news presenter, 53, joins the likes of Angela Rippon, Les Dennis, EastEnders actor Bobby Brazier and Love Island’s Zara McDermott in the ballroom.
But it’s not been easy, and amid the injuries that have already occurred including Amanda Abbington’s foot woes and Adam Thomas’ chronic health condition, Krishnan has already had to visit the doctor.
He explained to Metro.co.uk: ‘I’ve already been to see the physio!’
‘But that’s because I’ve got a sore back anyway,’ he added.
Speaking about taking on the training, Krishnan told us: ‘The thing you work out very quickly is whether you can do more than one thing at a time.
‘Because there’s quite a lot of that in dance! And thinking about stuff as well.
‘But my dance partner has just spent all the time saying, “Dance don’t think.”
‘If I think, I’m dead.’
Earlier this month, Krishnan echoed this comments saying he worried about ‘dropping dead’ on the dance floor as he opened up about ‘various health issues’, including one that caused the death of two of his cousins.
‘I’m really starting to have this realisation: you have to get the absolute most out of life before you’re decrepit,’ he told The Guardian.
‘I’ve got various health issues, which I’m constantly aware of. I’ve got a genetic heart condition – hypertrophic cardiomyopathy – which has killed two of my cousins, Crohn’s disease, various other things I won’t bore you with.
‘I even asked my cardiologist if I might drop dead live on BBC One. No, was his answer – but he couldn’t give me an absolute guarantee.’
The presenter outlined how he has to be ‘careful’ of his heartbeat increasing to a certain level, the ‘final 15%’ in the ‘red zone’.
‘They’ve been asking me to do these sorts of shows for years. What if I kept saying no? It might not be physically possible for me to do it now – that remains to be seen. But it certainly won’t be possible in five years,’ he added.
What is hypertrophic cardiomyopathy?
The NHS explains that cardiomyopathy is ‘a general term for diseases of the heart muscle, where the walls of the heart chambers have become stretched, thickened or stiff. This affects the heart’s ability to pump blood around the body’.
Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which Krishnan has, is a condition where a patient’s heart muscle cells enlarge and the walls of the heart chambers thicken.
The heart chambers cannot hold as much blood, because they are reduced in size, and ‘the walls cannot relax properly and may stiffen’.
‘Also, the flow of blood through the heart may be obstructed,’ the national health service outlines.
While the NHS stresses that most people who have hypertrophic cardiomyopathy don’t have symptoms and don’t need treatment, it is ‘the most common cause of sudden unexpected death in childhood and in young athletes’.
Strictly Come Dancing returns to BBC One and iPlayer on Saturday, September 16.
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