February is hearth health month

Early Detection Key to Avoiding Heart Disease

Here’s a sobering fact: For about half of the people who suffered fatal heart attacks last year, the heart attack itself was their first indication of a heart problem. Until that point, they had no apparent symptoms of heart disease.

Heart disease is one of the leading causes of death in the United States and helps drive the continuing increase in healthcare costs that plague all of us—employers and employees alike. Early detection and treatment is not only critical for your personal health and well-being, it can help put the brakes on the ever increasing costs of healthcare.

Here’s a quick health quiz that can help you find out if you could be at an increased risk for heart problems.

• Do any of your blood relatives have (or did they have) heart disease, diabetes or high blood pressure?
• Is your waistline over 40 inches for a man or 35 inches for a woman?
• Do you exercise less than three days or not at all?
• Do you have a lot of unresolved stress in your job?
• Do you smoke now or did you?

If you answered yes to questions one or two you are probably at increased risk for heart disease, diabetes and stroke. If you answered no to the first two, you’re still not out of the woods. A yes answer to the last three questions could also mean you’re at risk. If so, and you’re over 45 years of age, make an appointment to see your doctor now. With a few simple tests, your doctor can assess your risk and explain what you should do to minimize it.

If the blood pressure check or the blood tests show your heart health at risk, the doctor will probably suggest a few lifestyle changes. That means pushing back from the table a little sooner and getting 30 minutes worth of aerobic exercise more days than not. If that doesn’t work, he may write a prescription to help you manage your cholesterol or blood sugar levels.

In some cases, however, if your doctor feels your risk factors are significant—even if you have no symptoms—you may be referred to a cardiologist for a more thorough evaluation. If that happens, it’s still not time to panic.

Cardiologists have an array of non-invasive tests and procedures at their fingertips that they didn’t have even 10 years ago to help them pinpoint problems and act on them quickly, well in advance of any cardiac incident.

One of the newest is a computed tomography or CT scan, which is a method of body imaging in which a thin x-ray beam rotates around the patient. A computer analyzes the data to construct a cross-sectional image of the heart.

The CT scanners are the most advanced diagnostic tools available to cardiologists. The newest of them can capture images of the heart and coronaries in fewer than five heartbeats. These images are then displayed in 3-D so that the cardiologist can pinpoint obvious problems such as arterial blockage, and not so obvious warning signs like calcium deposits in artery walls. Calcium doesn’t cause a heart attack, but studies have shown that even in otherwise healthy people, the deposits signal that plaque is present, putting them at risk of heart attack and stroke.

Early detection and treatment remain the best way to prevent heart disease and stroke, and with the diagnostic tests available today, people with and without the obvious risk factors can discover if they are at risk of heart disease or stroke. Armed with that knowledge they can work with their doctors to take the steps necessary to avoid the huge monetary and emotional costs of serious heart disease or stroke.

www.legacyheartcenter.com