LifeCare Chiropractic

The Best Chiropractic Care in Mesa, Arizona

prevent heart attack

Is Your Cardiologist a Hypocrite? 80% Chance the Answer is Yes

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Respect.  Without this one factor, the advice your doctor gives you will go in one ear and out the other.  There are a variety of factors that contribute to the level of respect you have for your physician.

High on the list is whether or not your physician practices what he or she preaches.  Does he or she reek of cigarette smoke, and yet expects you to quit?  Does he or she have a belly that stick way too far past the waistline and yet expects you to lose weight to manage your diabetes?  Does your doctor tell you that you need to ramp up the exercise, but wouldn’t know what to do with a jump rope if he or she tripped over it?

These situations make it hard to follow your doctor’s advice.  Unfortunately, it does not seem to be an isolated experience.

This particular study looked at a large population of 1770 cardiologists in Italy and questioned them on their heart-healthy behaviors.  (Keep in mind that Europeans, in general, are healthier than us Americans)  One group of questions asked about 5 classic heart disease risk factors.  This simple list included:

  1. High blood pressure
  2. High cholesterol
  3. Smoking
  4. Diabetes
  5. Previous vascular events

Pretty simple list of things to avoid that are almost entirely lifestyle dependent.  So what did the researchers find?

  • More than 49% of the participants had at least 1 risk factor.
  • More than 28% had 2 to 5 risk factors.
  • A mere 22.1% had none of these factors.
  • Despite the reported risk factors, >90% of cardiologists considered themselves at mild risk of a cardiac event.
  • Furthermore, overweight and obesity, physical inactivity, and stress at work or at home were commonly reported.
  • Very interestingly, cardiologists self reported only a limited use of cardiovascular drugs, such as statins or aspirin.

How can society expect to stem the tsunami of chronic disease if the stewards of health are themselves, not healthy?  “Do as I say, not as I do.”  It won’t work.

The bottom line is that your health and the responsibility for your health lies with you.  NEVER rely on any physician to teach you more about staying healthy then you can learn yourself (except maybe me, of course….).  According the this study, the odds are that even your cardiologist doesn’t know what’s good for his or her heart.

Still Taking Aspirin for Your Heart? You Better See This…

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We love to shoot for the low hanging fruit when it comes to chronic disease management and prevention.  Don’t avoid processed foods high in sodium–just by the same junk in a “low sodium” version.  Don’t exercise too hard–a light 30 minute walk around the block is enough.  Don’t avoid refined carbohydrates–just eat more whole grains.

You get the idea.

We seem fixated on the idea of making “easy” to make changes that have a really small impact on chronic disease.  Can’t lower your cholesterol through lifestyle?  This class of drugs will lower your risk of heart attacks by 1%.  High blood pressure?  Forget lifestyle, just take a beta blocker–you won’t lower your risk of stroke (actually increases risk) but you’ll have a better looking blood pressure to tell your friends.

Just how good is aspirin at preventing heart attacks?  Treat 1,000 people with aspirin for 5 years and you prevent 2.9 heart attacks, although 2.8 of you will suffer a major bleeding episode as a result, leading to a net benefit of .1 person for every 1,000 treated.  Or, for those of you who haven’t had a math class for several decades, you have to treat 10,000 people for 5 years to prevent a single heart attack.

Sounds like the only person the recommendations to take aspirin for your heart benefitted was Bayer.

So it’s a little money out of my pocket.  At least there are no dangers associated with aspirin use.  Unless, of course, you count these:

  1. Increased risk of pancreatic cancer
  2. Asprin use may make you more susceptible to gluten allergies.
  3. Increased risk of esophageal lesions and cancer

The list is probably longer, but these are a few of the studies I’ve reviewed over the years.

Thanks to this particular study, now we can add a new one.

Neovascular age-related macular degeneration.  Almost 246% higher risk in regular users of aspirin.

So, if you’re one of the lucky 1 in 10,000 that avoided a heart attack by regular use of aspirin, then congratulations.  If however, you’re in the group with everyone else, just hope that your eyesight is still intact as a result of taking a daily aspirin for a perceived lowered risk of having a heart attack.

If you are still taking aspirin to lower your risk of having a heart attack, is this choice because your doctor has recommended it, or because society general thinks that this will protect your heart?