Heart Health Buzz

Heart health care is one of today’s buzzing preventative movements. For years now, the simple dogma has been the following prescription. It’s a combination of good diet and exercise, along with decreased stress, adequate sleep, maintaining social activities, and avoiding high risk behaviors such as smoking, illegal or abused drug usage, etc.

Yet to reach consumers, science and direct to consumer advertising isn’t stopping at the pills. For starters, in the US alone, several entities are springing up to diagnose heart disease where doctors might miss it. Conventionally, besides checking the body, doctors will order chemistry tests, blood work, as well as EKG or echo scans to identify basal heart conditions. If these tests prompt attention, then further testing is done.

Business entities assert that in order to prevent heart disease, its best to take the offered tests if one meets basic criteria such as age greater than 35 years, obesity, or family history of heart disease. It’s claimed that technology like Electron Beam Tomography offers Coronary Artery Scans that are capable of detecting biological markers ahead of the traditional routes. Some of the other tests even compete against one another such as coronary calcium scoring versus carotid artery ultrasound. Doctors or businesses use judgment to recommend certain tests over others to tailor unique care to each patient.

Results are usually enlightening for both the patients and their physicians. However the tests can be expensive, ranging between 300-2000 dollars, often not being reimbursed by insurances. While it’s good that most tests are non-invasive, quick, painfree, and capable of being taken on a walk-in basis, radiation exposure is still another concern. So expert helpers like cardiologists are recommended to sort through all offered tests, spend money efficiently, and get the best preventative care possible.

For centuries now, people have been dying of sudden deaths due to many reasons. One might picture a sedentary lifestyle or being overweight as the cause of most deaths. It’s true that such circumstances lead to chronic and often irreversible conditions such as classic heart attacks, heart failures, and more. Yet closer examination of these cases can relate that even active, slim individuals such as athletes die due to heart problems. Three of the major silent killers in this population are 1) irregular heart beats or arrhythmias, 2) hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) which is a thickening in heart walls causing fewer heart pumps, and 3) genetic abnormalities like fewer arteries, different heart positions in the body, and more.

According to Healthy People 2010, an American government initiative to improve longevity, heart disease is the number one killer for both men and women in the US. As fast food and technological comforts invade the world, this trend is picking up in other countries too. Yet where heart screenings are not offered to the general public, mammograms and vaccinations are routinely urged for patients. Many countries are therefore now screening citizens, especially athletes. Research indicates that screening athletes for heart disease with at least an EKG is beneficial. In light of this, should screenings be endorsed for the general public as are routine physicals in high school? Would this be an extra burden for society? But are the stakes of a simple EKG really too high; is it asking a lot from our developed societies that already partake in lots of other preventative health measures?

Many organizations like the American Heart Association have complex stance on the issue. Not every one’s body needs to be inspected for rare heart conditions. Nonetheless, until the medical community can come to a consensus, the burden of the task rests on the individual. These heart tests help doctors make better long term, preventative health recommendations for each unique patient. At the least the tests provide an assurance that one might die of something, but it probably won’t be heart disease.