2020 will have monthly blogs, each focusing on one topic which seems to surface often in our daily conversations with our patients. I will try to pick subjects that are “ hot”, and offer some helpful hints. Knowledge is power, so read on even if you don’t think a given topic is pertinent to you at this moment. The February topic is:
How Can We Stop America’s Silent Killer: Heart Disease
Imagine that four passenger jets crashed DAILY for the whole year killing everyone on board. As a community we would be outraged, terrified, and would work feverishly to do something (anything!!!) to stop the crashes. So many innocent people dying, such preventable deaths...
Incredibly enough this is roughly the same amount of people that die annually from heart disease in America! Know that about 80% of these deaths can be prevented, but despite having the ability to prevent these hypothetical crashes, our patients continue to board the planes every day. How can this be? Few realize that heart disease is the underlying cause of one out of three U.S. deaths, and kills more patients than all forms of cancer combined. In spite of this people fear cancer more and are willing to invest in preventing it, while not even examining their personal cardiovascular risk.
There are, to be sure, many myths about heart disease, risk and prevention. It is often difficult to understand the risk factors: is high cholesterol as seen in the level of LDL (low density lipoproteins) the most important indicator of risk, or is it the heart specific inflammation factor (hs-CRP)? What causes most heart attacks: fat clots or calcium deposits inside the arteries? How often should you have a cardiovascular profile checked, and what kind of testing should the check-up include?
To answer: As it turns out it is the combination of both high LDL, high hs-CRP and low HDL that is most dangerous. Additionally, your family history, body mass index, and blood pressure contribute to stratify your risk factors. However, the answer to each of these questions underscores the need to analyze each individual’s personal profile to increase their chances of avoiding a cardiovascular event. Medicine, after all is both a science and an art!
A 2019 national health survey showed that only 14% of Americans have had their inflammatory index and 54% their cholesterol levels checked within the last 12 months. DC Medical prides itself in being a preventive medicine practice. Therefore, we check both these indexes yearly as part of the routine wellness examination. We tailor further testing (such as EKG or HOLTER monitoring, arterial circulation indexes or heart calcium scores) to each patient’s personal medical profile which include factors such as smoking, family history, body mass index, etc.
Most importantly we work with you to create a lifestyle plan for optimizing your heart health. This includes young patients as well because the decisions one makes in their 20s and 30s will affect them decades later. A patient-doctor partnership is probably the most important pathway to prevention. Ask us what your personal risk is!