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Your Health Alert

You, YES YOU, Are At Risk for Heart Disease!
Welcome to the first in my new series of articles about heart attacks and strokes. Together, they constitute America’s Number One Epidemic. We all know of someone who has died prematurely and unexpectedly of a heart attack or stroke. Heart attacks kill more Americans each year than all cancers, all infectious diseases (including HIV), and all accidents, combined. For 50% of men, and 64% of women, the first sign of their heart attack is sudden death. And, over half the people who die from a heart attack have “normal” cholesterol and could have “passed” a stress test. Will you be a statistic?

Throughout the next 13 weeks, I will tell you how, in the majority of cases, heart attacks and strokes can be prevented. I will give some of the latest information on the diseases, information that your doctor may not be aware of. I will show you that, by being informed and proactive in your health care, you can greatly reduce your chances of becoming another statistic. Here are some of the topics coming up:

Why the most frequently used test misses heart disease over 68% of the time, and why some people have died 2 weeks after passing one of them.
What are the real risk factors for heart disease and stroke, and there are a lot more than you may think.
How arterial inflammation and arterial plaque are better at predicting future heart attacks than cholesterol numbers.
Which tests are the best at assessing arterial plaque and inflammation, and which are not.
The best test for assessing stroke risk.
The new generation genotype tests, and their insight into your condition.
What you can do to effectively prevent, treat, and even reverse heart disease.

Fact: The incidence of initial heart attacks is the only disease condition that has not shown any significant improvement over the past 80 years! According to the National Vital Statistics Report, the cardiovascular (CV) disease death rate in the year 1900 was 345 per 100,000 people. In 2003, the CV death rate was 310 per 100,000. We have made great strides in treating people after a coronary event, but essentially no progress has been made in our efforts to prevent the initial event.
We have the technology, the pharmacology, and the lifestyle programs to prevent the vast majority of initial heart attacks. The question is, so why aren’t we?
Check back next week for all the risk factors and associated conditions known to be associated with heart disease. I’m sure there will be some that surprise you.
Joe Turnbow, M.D.