Take Care of Your Ticker
By Lidija Fremeau | February 3 2020
If you’ve run out of motivation for your New Year’s Resolutions, American Heart Month, a federally designated event, is an ideal time to remind us all to focus on our hearts and health!
Heart disease doesn’t happen just to older adults. It is happening to younger adults more and more often. This is partly because the conditions that lead to heart disease are happening at younger ages. Now is the perfect time to learn about your risk for heart disease and the steps you need to take now to help your heart.
Dave Gordon, MD, our resident cardiovascular pathologist states, “Heart disease and strokes too often occur suddenly without prior warning and can be fatal or cause irreversible damage. That is why it's important to control risk factors - e.g., cigarette smoking, high cholesterol, high blood pressure - now before they cause a catastrophic event.”
Heart disease is the leading cause of death for men and women in the United States. Every year, one in four deaths are caused by heart disease. Heart disease is the number one killer of women, killing more women than all forms of cancer combined. One in three women die of heart disease and stroke each year.
Specifically designed to raise awareness for women, the Go Red campaign is helpful to anyone:
G: Get your numbers (Ask your doctor to check your blood pressure and cholesterol)
O: Own your lifestyle (Stop smoking, lose weight, exercise, and eat healthy)
R: Realize your risk (We think it won’t happen to us, but heart disease kills one of three women)
E: Educate your family (Make healthy food choices for you and your family)
D: Don’t be silent (Tell every woman you know that heart disease is our number one killer)
Dr. Gordon sees a lot of heart biopsies for patients who have had heart transplants and aneurysms which probably developed in the setting of high blood pressure, but this is after the damage is done. “Prevention efforts can prevent further disease episodes” he offered. Dr. Gordon states that he “would much rather see fewer patients coming to autopsy for heart disease that could have been prevented!”
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