Think prevention to lower your risk for heart disease
Heart disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women in the United States. This Heart Month, it’s a good time to do what it takes to take care for your heart – before it needs a serious intervention. By acting now, you can keep your heart beating stronger and longer – that’s a Valentine to really make your loved ones happy.
• What are the key screenings for monitoring cardiovascular health?
Fortunately, a large portion of heart disease is preventable. While we can’t control things like our age or family history, there are several risk factors for heart disease that can be controlled to keep your heart healthy. Here are key areas that must be checked and monitored for a healthy heart:
- Physical exam: Have your heart listened to at your regular doctor’s visits
- Blood pressure: Get your blood pressure checked every time you see your doctor and at least once a year. The goal is a blood pressure less than 120/80 mm Hg.
- Cholesterol: Get a fasting lipid profile (total, HDL, and LDL cholesterol) checked at least every four to six years, or more often if you are at higher risk.
- Blood sugar: Get a fasting blood glucose test or a hemoglobin A1c level checked to screen for diabetes and prediabetes at least every three years.
- Weight and Body Mass Index (BMI): Make sure you’re at a healthy body weight and composition for your height.
- Lifestyle habits: Stop smoking, increase your physical activity, and eat a healthy diet.
• What are causes of congestive heart failure?
Your body needs to pump blood forward to keep up with your physical needs. Congestive heart failure is a specific type of heart failure that occurs when the heart can’t pump blood forward well enough. As a result, blood tries to return to the heart and backs up in the body. This can cause swelling in the legs from the extra fluid in the veins, and shortness of breath from extra fluid buildup in the lungs.
Any condition that causes damage to the heart muscle or that makes the heart work harder over a period of time can cause heart failure. The most common conditions that lead to heart failure are coronary artery disease, high blood pressure, and previous heart attacks. Coronary artery disease (build-up of plaque in the heart arteries) decreases the blood supply to the heart muscle, which weakens it over time. When an artery gets completely blocked, causing a heart attack, the damaged heart muscle tissue does not work well, and the heart is weakened overall. When the heart has to work much harder than normal against high blood pressure, the heart gets larger and weaker over time.
Other conditions that can cause heart failure are valve disease (abnormal heart valves that don't open or close properly), prolonged abnormal heart rhythms, heart defects at birth (congenital heart disease), severe lung disease, and any disease that affects the heart muscles such as infections, drugs/toxins, or genetic disorders. Diabetes, obesity, and sleep apnea (disordered breathing during sleep) also increase the risk for heart failure.
• What does it mean to have a heart murmur? Are heart murmurs serious health conditions?
A heart murmur is a sound your doctor can hear when listening to your heart. Some murmurs can be innocent, just from the blood flowing normally through the valves and chambers of the heart. These innocent flow murmurs are common in children and can go away or remain as you get older. They are not considered harmful or serious.
Abnormal heart murmurs are most often caused by valve disease, when a heart valve is not opening or closing properly. The murmur is the sound of the blood either leaking backwards at the time when it should be closed, or of blood squeezing through a tight opening when the valve should be open.
Less often, murmurs can be caused by abnormal defects between the chambers of the heart or conditions when there is increased blood flow in the body (such as exercise, pregnancy, fever, overactive thyroid, or anemia).
Murmurs are graded by intensity (loudness) from 1 to 6. Abnormal heart murmurs can be evaluated further with additional testing and evaluation by a specialist.
- By Dr. Camille Pearte, Cardiologist
Heart Month is the perfect time to think about ways to keep your heart healthy all year long. Regular wellness visits with your doctor, monitoring risk factors for heart disease, and having a healthy diet and regular exercise routine are key. According to the Centers for Disease Control, approximately 80% of cardiovascular disease is preventable. For more information on how to keep your heart healthy, visit the CDC’s web page on preventing heart disease.
For more information visit the American Heart Association information pages on heart disease: https://www.heart.org/en/health-topics