Heart Health

Heart Disease (ASCVD) is the #1 KILLER of men and women

The killer is SILENT

·      50% of people who will suffer a heart attack will die– and without experiencing any prior symptoms

Atherosclerosis (ASCVD) is the only disease that is INEVITABLE, and it limits human longevity

·      Cancer and dementia are diseases of old age and are not inevitable

Affects EVERYONE

NOT A DISEASE of OLD AGE

·      50% of men who are going to have a cardiac event in their life will have it before the age of 65, and 25% before the age of 54

·      For women, 33% of women will have their 1st cardiac event before the age of 65

POOR SCREENING TESTS- Biomarkers tell about the risk but not how much atherosclerosis is present. Predicting risk is useful so we can lower risk by reducing them.

Cholesterol,LDL and HDL levels only measure the risk factors of disease and are poor measures of that risk

·      70% of heart attack victims are considered low risk by traditional clinical scoring.

Stress tests measure the symptoms of the disease.

·      75% of lesions that are responsible for heart attacks cause only mild narrowing of the arteries and are missed by conventional stress testing.

ASCVD Facts

2 main paths to atherosclerosis risk factors besides smoking, a behavioral risk factor

1 – Hypertension

2 – High blood and lipid abnormalities, and this is what leads to atherosclerotic  

      cardiovascular disease (ASCVD)

You don’t have to be obese or have high blood pressure.

Atherosclerosis is defined by the presence of cholesterol in the artery wall, this is not necessarily related to the measurement of cholesterol in your blood. ASCVD is disease state characterized by the deposition or the buildup of cholesterol (sterols) in the

artery wall leading to a reduction in blood flow. Reduction in blood flow is called ischemia and ischemia results in tissue damage to the heart and this is what results in a heart attack. A heart attack can be fatal depending on the amount of cardiac tissue that is damaged from loss of oxygenation.

Patients with cholesterol in their arteries do not necessarily have to have co-aggravating

factors such as: high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, family history, smoking…. But all these things exacerbate ASCVD.