I have been amazed at how many of my patients were lacking in the basic skills of being "heart healthy". Over the years I have developed "quicky lectures" for many of the items that I deemed really important. I feel that the patients that I dealt with were very grateful for this and did put that information to good use.
This book represents a series of those talks and discussions that I have had with my patients in attempting to solve their health problems. It is also aimed towards trying to prevent health problems in the first place. Many of my patients have had bad habits that the patients KNEW were bad habits but the patients had just never been pushed to change them. I have taken it onto myself to be the "pusher". Get angry with me if you want. Many have. I would rather that happen than see a healthy person suddenly, out of the blue, become a very unhealthy person.
One of the common scenarios that I have encountered is this: A 50 year-old person feels fine. He is 25 pounds overweight and eats pretty much what he feels like. He doesnt exercise much and sees a doctor only when he has a cold or a pain. Checkups are not deemed to be necessary so long as he is feeling well. Then, he has a heart attack. If he comes out of that, quite often with heart damage, he goes on to a rigorous schedule of cardiac rehabilitation dietary changes, weight loss, and close follow-up with his physician. These folks often do remarkably well after they get into their rehabilitation programs. They lose weight, get their cholesterol levels in good shape, and often walk five miles three times a week on the treadmill.
In my practice this was what USUALLY happened, not what happened OCCASIONALLY.
This is WRONG. This should be reversed. The weight- loss, changed life-style, exercise, and dietary restrictions should come BEFORE the damage to the heart happens.
One goal of this book is to convince you, the reader, that PREVENTION is most important and so much more efficient than trying to REPAIR the damage once it has occurred.
It has been known since the Korean War that young teen-age soldiers, apparently healthy, when autopsied after a death caused by injury, were found to have the changes present of coronary artery disease. These soldiers had been completely without symptoms of any heart disease. Since those findings were published many teenagers and young adults have been autopsied after accidental deaths. The same fatty streaks have been found in their arteries!
These fatty streaks that are found are the first signs of atherosclerosis. If you think you are immune, how about this little gem: In one autopsy study of almost three thousand men and women aged 15 to 34 years ALL OF THEM had fatty streaks in their aortas!
This shows that it was just a matter of time before these people would have had the problems associated with atherosclerosis (blocking of the arteries) and coronary artery disease if something wasnt done to prevent this cascade from happening.
There must be a really large bunch of people who are just walking time bombs, with heart attacks lurking in their future. Most of them feel "fine" and are blissfully ignorant of what awaits them.
Over the years, in caring for my patients I have attempted to find the problems that lead to a heart attack and correct these problems before the heart attack happens. When I have found blocked arteries and have successfully aborted a heart attack the patient is always very surprised, for most of these patients have had NO symptoms. Quite often they really object to getting testing because they feel so well. Some of those people that are found to have problems have gone on to have corrective procedures. They often get one of the following procedures: 1) Angioplasty, which entails opening the arteries up with a catheter and balloon, maybe with a stent, to better keep the artery open. 2) Cardiac bypass graft, which entails taking an artery from somewhere like a leg, placing it into a site that is short of circulation because of a blocked artery and 3) Some are treated medically.
This Medical Management consists of most of the things that I am going to be advising you to do BEFORE you get to that point. That is what this book is about.
The choice of which of the above-listed procedures is chosen is dependent on the type of problem and the age and health of the patient.
I will discuss how the lipoprotein called LDL enters into this picture, and what to do about this nasty.
Another thing to keep in mind is the fact that in one out of every ten myocardial infarctions the FIRST symptom is SUDDEN DEATH.
So, please explore with me some of the workings of this body of yours and see what we can do to make YOUR future possibly more comfortable and less incapacitated by the injuries that might happen which are associated with that nasty and dangerous LDL.
|